There Are Places I Remember
by CardioQueen
Summary: Preston Burke and Addison Montgomery left their lives in Seattle for different reasons but never lost touch with each other. Now after two years away from the place they once called home, they find themselves wondering why they ever left.
1. Chapter 1

_There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed; some forever, not for better. Some have gone and some remain._ _All these places have their moments, of lovers and friends I still can recall. Some are dead and some are living; in my life I loved them all._

And with all these friends and lovers, there is no one that compares with you

---

It wasn't the scene that he was used to- black dresses and cocktail glasses, human bodies composed of more artificial material than should be legal, mindless chatter and useless gestures- everything, everybody was fake. For a fleeting moment, he wondered if California had done the same to his old friend.

When he saw her smile across the room, wave excitedly and then practically trip over her own two feet to greet him with a hug, Preston Burke knew that nothing would ever change Addison.

"You made it," Her words were laced with an enthusiasm that had been lacking in their telephone conversations over the past year and Burke was genuinely happy for her.

With a slight chuckle he returned her hug, "Indeed."

Pulling back, she brushed her hands over the black lapel of his sport coat and shook her head, "You haven't changed. Not that you would, it's only been two years. But it's been two years and that's a long, _long_ time when we're-"

"Trying to change everything," He finished with the smallest smile tracing upon his lips.

"Exactly," A punctuation to the brief conversation about their somewhat unintelligent decisions to try to move on from their lives in Seattle that they had left behind. They had dwelled on the topic for far too many hours, connected by satellites and telephone wires, spoke quietly of the regrets that they held and the hopes that they had.

Tonight was not a night for lamentations, however. It was supposed to be fun; a celebration of another year in the life of a brilliant and wildly successful woman.

With ease, Burke fell into the rhythm of the gathering. Meaningless words intermingled in the air and women drunk on expensive wine offered to carry on conversations with Burke in a more private arena and practically flung themselves upon him.

Addison couldn't help but watch with an amused grin and a half emptied glass of wine herself. He was an attractive man and any woman would be lucky to have him- she knew that she was lucky to have him in her life. There were nights that she was at the end of her rope and she could feel the fibers beneath her hands and they were quickly unraveling and then…

Then he was there. His smooth voice easing her away from the ledge, encouraging words promising that better things had to come because they'd already found rock bottom. Neither had cared to define what rock bottom was, even to each other- but it would give her hope to know that somebody was there with her.

For a few fleeting moments at a time, Addison would allow herself to wonder if she wasn't _supposed_ to be there with him at rock bottom.

It was only natural to entertain such thoughts with a man like him.

Their eyes met each other's from across the room and he excused himself from the small brothel he'd managed to acquire in such a short time at her party. As he moved across the room, he pulled another glass of wine from a passing waiter and approached with a sheepish grin, "You know some interesting people."

"Oh, them? I don't know them. I think they must have followed you in from the nearest street corner judging by their attire," She joked, casting a judgmental glance in their direction. "You have a way with the ladies, Preston."

He coughed to cover up the slightest chuckle of amusement, "Yes, well, I'm afraid that my attention has been reserved for only one person tonight. I have none to spare."

"Please, don't let me hamper your fun. I'll be fine. Here with my bottle of wine. All alone," Addison took a sip of her wine, granting him a pathetic glance.

"There's no fun to be had there, trust me."

Addison laughed softly and glanced out at the patio, "Do you want to go outside? I think it's pretty much been abandoned. We can hide you from your adoring fans."

"Please do," He nodded, falling into step behind her.

The warm sea breeze seemed to immediately drown out the dull roar that had surrounded the duo moments before. The patio was illuminated in a warm glow from tiki torches in the corners, flames tickled by the wind, threatening to extinguish at any moment.

Leaning against the splintering rail, Addison looked out at the beach and let out a soft sigh. "I should be happier than this," Her voice had that same uncharacteristically soft tone that it always had whenever she talked to him. Sometimes, she felt like he was the only person that she could really talk to.

"Should you be?" Burke asked, looking over at her. It was unusual, the things he noticed about her. For so long, he'd been used to looking down at his companion rather than having somebody at his level.

For a few fleeting moments at a time, Burke allowed himself to wonder if she was at his level in more than one way.

It was only natural to entertain those thoughts with a woman like her.

"You're thinking about something," Addison murmured softly, her blue eyes sparkling as she studied his dark brown ones deep with thought.

"I am," He answered, his voice deep.

Their gazes remained fixed for a long time, no words exchanged between the two of them yet so many things said. There was confusion and curiosity, hesitation and only a hint of excitement.

They'd both entertained the thoughts.

Addison's voice was the first to cut through the heavy silence, "Do you ever think about things that you shouldn't think about?" Her voice was wavering at best, her mouth incredibly dry. It had to be some sort of attraction thing. Two people couldn't be the way they were, couldn't talk the way that they did without being attracted to each other.

Could they?

Burke laughed gently, "That's a loaded question, Addison."

"I suppose that it is," Her voice was fading even more. There was a luster to her eyes that invited him in. "Do you ever think that maybe we're looking in the wrong place for the things that we want? That the thing we need might be right in front of us?"

Without a word, Burke reached out, ran a large hand over her cheek for a moment before weaving his fingers through her fiery locks. His other hand moved to grasp just above her hip and pull her a little bit closer and he dipped his head to kiss her.

Their lips brushed together tentatively at first, trying to adjust to the new sensation. It deepened only slightly before they mutually parted, their hands pulling away from each other's bodies.

Again, silence lingered between them, one waiting for the other to speak. This time, Burke spoke up first.

"It couldn't be that easy could it?" He asked, the slightest hint of amusement mixed with frustration not lost on Addison.

With a soft groan she sunk onto her overpriced lawn furniture, "Of course not."

Sensing her exasperation with the current state of her life, Burke took a seat next to her. His eyes focused on the rim of his wine glass and he cleared his throat. "I don't think about things that I shouldn't. I think about _her_," He paused to take a drink of his wine, "I think about whether or not what I did was the _right_ thing to do and if it was why it doesn't feel right. I think about the things I hear in passing about what's happened to Seattle Grace and I think about going back, what would happen if I went back to Seattle."

"We can't go back," She interrupted, "We can't just go back, can we? It's not that easy to just walk back into a life that we walked away from."

Burke cleared his throat slightly, "I don't know if I'd want to. She's seeing somebody. A trauma surgeon with issues, according to Shepherd."

"I'd heard as much. Mark's dating a twelve year old. Meredith Grey's sister," Addison paused and a pathetic laugh escaped her lips, "What is it about the Grey family that has to invade and infiltrate every corner of my life? They're not even that attractive. What is it that they have that I don't?"

"A good friend would tell you nothing. A better friend would remind you that Sloan wasn't the one who ended that pseudo-relationship."

"You're not helping," She muttered before emptying her glass, "And he has issues. Cristina has no business being with that man. He has no business working in a hospital until he gets those issues fixed. I respect what he's done for our country, the service that he's provided-"

"He's military?" Burke interrupted with a quirked eyebrow, "Shepherd didn't mention that. Go on."

"Maybe I shouldn't be telling you this," Addison answered warily.

"But you are," He countered.

Addison glanced up at him. All of the times that they had talked about rock bottom, the hundreds of times that she'd called him and never once had he mentioned his issues or the things on his mind.

Not that she needed to ask, she already knew the answer.

"He's being treated for PTSD. From what I've heard, but I cannot confirm, it may have had some…physical," Her eyes turned away from him, "Some physical manifestations. Nothing serious but frightening nonetheless."

Burke's fingers tightened around the rim of his glass but he said nothing. The last thing that he had wanted whenever he set her free was for her to end up in a situation like that, to end up with somebody broken.

Cristina deserved better than that.

"I can't imagine that Sloan has settled down with Grey's sister. He doesn't settle down for anybody does he?"

Addison studied her friend, unsurprised by his attempt to change the topic of conversation. She had never failed to notice how incredibly closed off the two of them were. Despite his decision to leave, she'd never once thought that they weren't perfect for each other. Neither one of them ever said a damn thing but usually seemed to get what the other one wasn't saying.

Usually.

"He's living with her," Addison finally mumbled, "Mark Sloan is living with one woman and not having sex with the nurses on the side. He's actually in a committed relationship."

"I'm impressed," Burke commented dryly.

"Me too. How wrong would it be for me to swoop in and take him back now that she seems to have him properly trained?"She asked and then laughed a little, "How pathetic am I spending my twenty-fifth birthday sitting here wishing that I were somewhere else other than my own party?"

"Twenty-five? That old?" He couldn't help but tease gently, "And it's not pathetic. Even as trying as those times were they seem so easy now in comparison."

"It's because we had people. People we knew and loved, that we lived for. Even if we didn't realize we were doing it at the time," She finally drew her eyes back up to his wounded brown ones. Clearly talking about the one place he really considered to be home was hard on him. "We couldn't go back there, could we? It couldn't be that easy."

His gaze searched hers for a brief moment as he entertained the thoughts of going back home, to the life he left behind. There was nothing that he wanted more than to return to Seattle, to the life he left behind.

No award held the allure of what the implications of returning to Seattle did.

"Who said it would be easy if we went back?" Burke replied in a deep timbre, "Going back to Seattle would be anything but easy."

"The hospital _is_ suffering without us. They're going through attending cardiothoracic surgeons at an unheard of rate," Addison said slowly.

Burke could see where she was going with it and didn't hesitate to participate in their delusional reasoning, "They've never replaced you. The neonatology program is the worst on the West coast."

"They dropped to number _twelve_. There's rumors that next year the numbers could be even lower, that they could lose their UNOS accreditation, their trauma certifications. They merged with Mercy West."

"Richard is handling it poorly," Burke added, "Or so I've heard. The hospital is a disaster and the leadership leaves little to be desired."

"Really, we'd be doing them a favor if we went back," Addison said with finality, "They'd owe us. Big time."

"Absolutely," Burke agreed, "And I don't doubt for a moment that Richard would welcome us back with open arms."

With the slightest hint of mischief in her eye, Addison looked up at her dear friend and the look of despair that had darkened her expression for the past months had evolved into something different- perhaps it was determination or pure madness. No matter whatever new notion had taken her over, it was infectious. "What do you have waiting for you at home, Preston?"

There was no hesitation in Burke's reply, "My home is in Seattle."


	2. Chapter 2

There were only two women that could cause Preston Burke to doubt his sanity; two women that could cause him to take pause and really wonder exactly what the _hell_ he was doing. One of those women stirred so much doubt within him, that in a long lingering moment of hesitation he made what he considered to be the biggest mistake of his life.

The other woman made him wonder if he was getting ready to make the second biggest date of his life.

His eyebrow remained in a high arch on his forehead creased with worry lines as he studied the brochures in front of him, "These are real estate guides, Addison."

"There are some rental guides in there too," She answered nonchalantly, pouring two large green mugs of coffee. She carried the steaming hot liquid over to the table and settled one in front of him.

"I think you're missing the point," Burke chuckled, "Shouldn't we-"

"No," Addison interrupted before he could even get his question out, "Mark. Mark stayed at the Archfield. Derek lived in a trailer with wheels, one that could move. When I left Derek I lived in a suite, Preston, a hotel room. Trailers and suites scream that we're ready to give up and admit defeat, the scream that we're not committed, that we'll run at the first sign of a difficult situation. We need permanence, we need an apartment. We need them to know that we're not going _anywhere_."

Burke couldn't hide the smallest sign of amusement at her obviously well practiced argument. He couldn't deny the validity of that argument as well, "So I suppose that we're looking at real estate then."

"We're looking at real estate," Addison agreed in a firm tone. She pulled the guide from his hand before he could even open it up, "I found this great little condo just a few blocks from the hospital. I think that it's the one."

"You're not going to look at it in person?" He asked, his eyebrow raised again. "That isn't wise,"

"I'll make it work. I don't want them to know we're there until we're there. It's all in the plan, Preston. We show up, already settled and moved in, it will leave them in a state of disbelief. It weakens their defenses."

"This isn't war, Addison."

"On the contrary, Preston, it very much is war." She countered with a grin, "_Relax_. The pictures in these guides are fantastic and my real estate agent would never fail me,"

Burke remained silent. Buying a place was a huge step. It wasn't the money, wasn't the fact that he wouldn't be able to sell it- he really wasn't that concerned about whether or not he could sell it. Money was no object.

He was more concerned with the message it would send to Cristina.

Addison did make the point that it showed he was in it- in it for the long haul as Cristina would have said so long ago, it showed that he was committed.

"Don't over think it Preston," Addison said, reaching out to put her hand over his. "At my party, you had no hesitation. You said your home was in Seattle. Hold onto that. Hold onto how good it will feel to be _home_. The rest of it will come with time, right? It will have to come."

"And if it doesn't?"

"Then we can say that we tried. We can say that we gave it our all and obviously it wasn't meant to be. You said it yourself though- if it was the right thing for us to do, for us to leave Seattle, why doesn't it feel right?"

There were only two women that could cause Preston Burke to change his mind in a span of five minutes and Addison Montgomery was definitely one of them.

x-x-x-x-x

When Cristina Yang considered surgical programs, atmosphere was definitely _not_ something that she had taken into account. She didn't give a crap about culture or music or history or climate- the only thing she cared about was the presence of a renowned cardiogod and how long it would take until she was a cardiogod herself.

The rest of it, she would deal with as long as the program suited her.

The Seattle Grace Surgical Residency wasn't always the first on everybody's list- they wanted the name residencies- Hopkins, Harvard, Mayo; Cristina knew that it wasn't always about the name. Sure, Seattle Grace was a name, but it was an underrated name- that's what made Seattle so perfect.

Cristina Yang would be a name that everybody knew and she would appear out of _nowhere_; shock and awe, the second coming, whatever they wanted to call it she would be _the_ go-to for cardiothoracics and everybody else would be forgotten.

Seattle Grace was going to get her there.

Or at least she thought it would.

There were several factors that Cristina hadn't taken into account; one being her love for the city. She was born and raised in southern California but she hated the sunshine, loathed beaches, didn't do the whole shopping thing- it wasn't her lifestyle. Seattle, however, with all of it's dingy bars, the people who donned shirts proclaiming that pale is the new tan, the non-stop gray rainy skies and the coffee- oh _god_, the coffee- she hadn't counted on falling in love with the city.

Or _any_ of it's inhabitants.

Falling in love with Burke should have never happened- he was a mentor and after Marlow, she had completely sworn that crap off. The last thing she needed was some smug bastard chasing her with a ring and plans to chain her to an oven, the last thing she wanted was puppy dog eyes glistening whenever she said no for the ten millionth time. She wanted to cut open a heart. That's all she wanted. Or needed.

And totally opposite of what she _got_.

To say she had rehashed the Burke situation in her head a million times was an understatement- it had to be three million at least. Carefully, she had dissected out the good things (or thing) about their relationship (sex) and decided to throw out all of the rest. There would be no more attachments or emotions or messy sticking involved.

Sex was okay.

Love was not.

Of course, at that time, Cristina hadn't counted on one Owen Hunt coming into the picture either. Owen Hunt, upon initial examination, was the epitome of hot and _very_ off limits to her. There was no way in hell she'd fall for another attending and certainly no way in hell that she'd ever let one invade her life again.

She wasn't in Seattle to get laid or pick up a husband, she was in Seattle to be a surgeon. At a number twelve hospital with no cardiogod (because _she_ had run him off) and a very bleak future. So bleak as a matter of fact, she found herself in Meredith's bed, blithering on and sobbing about how she missed Burke and she could hold hearts and blah blah blah blah.

Cristina was making herself nauseous just thinking about it, so she chose to erase that memory and erase the last four hours of her day from her frontal lobe.

Just like that, it had never happened.

Today was the perfect kind of day for Cristina- gray, rainy, just the slightest bit of chill in the air. The only thing that could possibly make it better was if the giant truck in front of her apartment and the burly men unloading furniture in the noisiest way possible would go far far away.

Cold brown eyes scanned over the belongings coming out of the truck and she nearly rolled them at the posh interior design that she pictured from the three pieces she had seen. Clearly somebody fancied themselves to be a designer whatever and that's the last kind of person she wanted to live next to. With Mark Sloan living in the apartment across the hall, she had enough of New York in the building and she didn't care to deal with anymore.

Her slender features reached out for the handle of her building when the glass came forward at a jarring rate and she stumbled backwards, landing flat on her ass and more importantly, scraping her hands on the pavement.

"_Excuse_ me!" She snapped with a disgusted look on her face, "Did you not _see_ me trying to open the door? It's glass. The damn door is made of-" Cristina finally stopped to look up and her jaw fell slack. "_Addison_?"

Addison looked startled and immediately scrambled to help the brazen young woman up from the ground, "I'm so, so sorry Cristina. I don't know what I was- well, I know what I was doing. I don't know how I-" She stammered and then stopped, trying to halt her thoughts that were going at a million miles per hour. "Does Mark live in this building?"

"Dr. Sloan?" Cristina repeated slowly, "Yes. He moved took the apartment across the hall from me and Callie," She added in a grumble, her disdain highly apparent.

"W-wait. You live here too?" Addison clarified.

"I just said he took-"

"I heard you," Addison smiled politely, forcing the mannerism at Cristina's less than savory tone. "Then I guess we're going to be neighbors."

"And coworkers?" Cristina questioned slowly, somewhat surprised that she hadn't heard anything of Addison's return, yet alone potential return to Seattle Grace.

"And colleagues," Addison confirmed, "It's good to be back. In Seattle. A lot of things are going to change. For the better. A _lot_ of things. You know. A lot."

Cristina snorted, "Not unless you brought a cardiogod with you,"

Addison nearly choked on her own saliva, "No. No cardiogods with me. Not even in my moving truck," She answered, smacking the side of it and then wincing slightly when she felt something sharp against the palm of her hand.

"Yeah, figures."Cristina muttered, walking towards the door.

"So, I'll see you around Yang?" Addison called after her, "Neighbor?"

"Yeah. Whatever," Cristina answered before disappearing inside.

Addison waited a few minutes before pulling her blackberry from her bag, thinking a lot of four letter words that a lady should never think.

Preston would never believe this.


	3. Chapter 3

"It has to be a statistical improbability for this many horrified faces to be assembled in one place at the same time," Addison said under her breath as she leaned into Burke.

The two stood poised atop the stairs into the surgical unit, standing slightly behind Richard Webber who was announcing their return to Seattle Grace with pride. He continued to blither on about how with their help that Seattle Grace would once again return to it's former ranks.

It sounded like more of a demand of the staff rather than the promise of a good leader.

Burke didn't respond to Addison. His eyes were scanning the crowd, eagerly seeking out the on face that his heart longed to see. With each face he met, each set of eyes that lingered for only a split second, he grew discouraged.

The one person he wanted to see wasn't there.

Addison reached over, rested a hand upon the back of his arm as the gathering finally broke. Seeing that her friend was crestfallen and offered the only thing that she could, "It looks like we have a busy day already. We should ignore the work to do and start with a cup of coffee."

With the slightest of nods, he followed her from the unit leaving the sea of stunned surgical staff in their wake. He was not eager to hear the scores of whispers and gossip when he would return but took a fraction of seconds to remind himself that it would die down.

Perhaps it was his punishment for leaving the way that he had.

"Are you getting settled into your apartment?" Addison asked, saving her friend from his own thoughts.

"I am," He answered in with a distracted tone, "You were right about your agent. She's quite reliable. And your place? How is that?"

Pretending to play with her blackberry despite that some niggling part of her mind knew that the action was quite transparent, Addison answered in the most casual tone possible. "Oh, it's not bad. The apartment itself is amazing. The location is convenient, actually- it's more than convenient. We can spy all we want to."

Burke stopped and looked down with her with an arched eyebrow, "Spy? And exactly what are we spying on from your apartment."

"Cristina," Addison answered with a smug grin. Mentally she added that she could watch Mark too, but then convinced herself in that same second that she didn't care about Mark. She'd given herself a new mission.

Surveillance could be fun.

"Cristina," Burke repeated slowly. "Cristina lives in your building?"

"Which makes the spying that much easier," Addison beamed.

As much as he wanted to be, Burke wasn't convinced. Perhaps it was that too many things were happening at once- moving to Seattle, returning to the hospital that his heart had longed for and now already considering how he could work his way back into the graces of the woman he never stopped loving. It was too much too quickly and he knew that it's how Cristina must have felt. He cleared his throat, forced a slight grin and then continued walking, "We have a busy day. We should get our coffee."

Sensing his hesitance, Addison dropped the topic and followed in silence. She wasn't sure of the reason, but she just got him. She understood his actions. Because of all of that, Addison couldn't help but feel some amount of woe for the sentiment they'd shared a few weeks ago that it couldn't be so easy that they would be right for each other.

It was her greatest hope that the small feeling there would be replaced in the coming weeks with something more encompassing and meaningful.

At least for one of them.

x-x-x-x-x

Lexie Grey was intimidated by a lot of things: bumble bees, big dogs, speaking in front of large groups, girls who were _way_ more beautiful than she, and Cristina Yang.

All were mostly normal things to be afraid of and intimidated by, except for maybe the Cristina thing- unless people knew her and then they _totally_ got where she was coming from. It wasn't that Cristina was always cruel or hateful.

It's just that she was usually cruel or hateful. And incredibly brilliant and smart and witty and all of the things that she would never be- not that she _wanted_ to be cruel or hateful, but she wouldn't mind being able to remember everything under the sun without having a photographic memory.

She kind of wished that Cristina wasn't cruel or hateful either.

Under the cold glare of Cristina, Lexie worked with a shaking hand on her mattress suture and was completely aware that if she screwed up just the tiniest movement that Cristina _could_ kill her. Lexie knew far too much today; she knew about the argument with Dr. Hunt about not getting a surgery and how the guy from Mercy West with the hot eyes took it from her. She knew that Cristina was in Meredith's room and very upset and probably the most important thing of all, she knew that Dr. Burke was back.

Lexie's hand shook a little bit and she dropped her needle holder onto the bed. Okay, so maybe thinking about Cristina's problems right then wasn't the smartest idea, "S-sorry," She stammered, picking them back up.

Cristina, seeing an opportunity to torture somebody beneath her, seizing the opportunity to forget her own issues for a moment replied in an uncharacteristically _nice_ voice, "It's okay. I'd be worried if my boyfriend's ex was back too."

The color drained out of Lexie's face and she looked up at Cristina, "What? What are you talking about?"

"Oh, you didn't know?" Cristina asked, well aware that she didn't. "Dr. Montgomery. Her and Dr. Sloan had a thing. A _very_ long _very_ involved thing that involved cheating and adultery and babies and stuff; anyway, I'm sure it's not important if he didn't mention it."

"Y-you mean Dr. Montgomery? The Prada doctor? The red hair? With the shoes? A-and the legs?" Lexie clarified.

She_ was_ intimidated by women more beautiful than her and she _definitely_ was not nearly as beautiful as Addison Montgomery.

"Is there another Dr. Montgomery in this hospital?" Cristina asked, obviously annoyed by the stupid question.

Lexie fell quiet and went back about her suturing without looking back up at Cristina. That woman- Dr. Montgomery, she _was_ a thing with Mark. Not anymore.

Cristina was just trying to mess with her.

She hoped.

x-x-x-x-x

The day wore on for Burke and Addison, both separate between meetings and filing paperwork. There were no consults or surgeries on the board- those would be reserved for later in the week. Rather their day was full of awkward reintroductions and empty exchanges with former colleagues.

Seattle wasn't as welcoming as either had hoped- though Addison's luck was much better than Burke's.

One place however, that had welcomed them with open arms was The Emerald City Bar and Joe. With open arms they greeted and Joe called their drinks 'on the house' as he'd heard enough of the crap that they were going to be dealing with for a while and decided they needed to save their money for the ensuing therapy bill.

Addison chuckled slightly as he walked away, "Therapy. At least he hasn't changed."

"It's one thing," Burke agreed, raising his glass to hers. He paused a moment before continuing, "Long day."

"The longest," Addison agreed before sipping her drink and then setting it down, "I know that it feels like we're not supposed to be here. Right now it feels like we made the wrong choice. I know that. So before you say anything else, I know. And it will get better. This will be the right choice. I promise."

Burke being Burke, it wasn't really open to discussion. The day had been long and exhausting and he knew that he needed to prepare himself because the worst was yet to come, he'd still not seen Cristina. Addison hadn't seen Mark or Derek. Neither one of them were going to have it easy over the next few days and he wasn't sure how Addison could be so upbeat about any of it.

He had to admire her determination.

"I have consults tomorrow. I'll be in the OR by Wednesday," Burke finally replied before taking a long drink of his beer. "I'm anxious to get to work. It's been a while since I've been in the OR."

Addison glanced at him, "Really? Did you resign?"

With a shake of his head, he set his bottle down on the napkin. "I had taken a position at Hopkins as Chief of Surgery-" He began, but was immediately halted by Addison's reaction.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa- you…you were _Chief_ at _Hopkins_? Before this? Before you agreed to come here?" Addison was in disbelief and not entirely sure that she would have left it.

"Yes," He answered succinctly, his eyes never leaving hers.

"She has to realize what, I mean- you'll tell her, won't you?" Addison asked softly, "Preston you need to tell her that?"

"It doesn't matter. As I said, I'm just anxious to get back to work. Maybe I can find time to work in a case tomorrow instead of Wednesday," He glanced up at the door as another patron entered and he took note of Mark Sloan entering the bar with a very young woman and he slid his glance to Addison. "It would appear that I've just met Mark's girlfriend."

Addison very obviously turned her head to look at Lexie Grey and she groaned softly, turning around. "She's a twelve year old, Preston. Why do all of the men in my life have to date twelve year old girls? Just for once can't they at least date somebody our age? Or at least attempt to date somebody closer to our age?"

Burke couldn't hide the amusement and Mark's current choice of significant other, "Is this one old enough to drink?"

"No, Joe probably has to stock chocolate milk behind the counter just for her. And juice boxes," Addison couldn't help but partake of the prodding just a little bit.

Okay, she wanted to prod a lot. And poke a lot of fun.

She needed to hate this girl.

"As a matter of fact, I bet Joe has changed his hours so that Mark's girlfriend can make it to bed on time. She's very cranky in the morning if she misses bedtime," Addison laughed at her own joke and then looked at Burke who wasn't laughing. "Not a very good joke, huh?"

"No," He answered with a small smirk, "But the chocolate milk was good."

"I haven't lost my touch then," Addison shrugged, proud that she could at least execute one joke well. She turned back to watch the two of them, catching Lexie looking back at her and she turned around, nearly knocking her drink over. "What's she doing? I can't watch."

"You're not a very good spy," Burke teased in a low voice, casually glancing in their direction and straightening out.

"Don't say that I'm not a good spy, Preston. I'm a good spy and if you're not nice to me I don't have to share the information that I get from living upstairs from your ex-"

Burke cleared his throat, "Dr. Sloan, so good to see you again."

His tone was less than sincere.

"Dr. Burke, I see you came back. Is your tail still between your legs or did it just fall off?" Mark greeted with a smug grin, "Addison, you know Lexie," He paused to look at Burke, "Dr. Burke, this is my girlfriend, Dr. Lexie Grey, one of our best second year residents."

Lexie took Burke's hand warmly, "Dr. Burke- I recognized you from your article about the Harper-Avery award. I've heard a lot about you. I have a minor interest in cardiothoracics and so when I saw you here- I-I just wanted to say hello," She stammered slightly, in awe of the man before her. He was kind of hot, but he looked mostly nice and he seemed somewhat nice, which was so _not_ what she expected out of a guy that Cristina Yang was going to marry.

Burke chuckled, more out of amusement than anything else, "It's good to meet you Dr. Grey," He responded to her rambling introduction, "And I'm certain we'll work together at some point."

Mark glanced at the man with contempt as if Burke would actually make some sort of move on his preschool aged girlfriend and then glanced at Addison, "Have you seen Derek yet?"

"No, no I have not. I haven't seen many people at all. Where is everybody?" Addison asked, pushing out a seat for him and then inwardly cringing at her action.

Why couldn't she think first and act second?

Mark took the seat and Lexie looked blankly at Burke until he moved next to Addison, mumbling something about her having a seat. Mark glanced back in Lexie's direction for a moment before turning his attention back to Addison, "He's out with Grey for a couple of days. He should be back later in the week."

Addison nodded, taking notice at how uncomfortable Lexie seemed to be. "I see."

"Is everything okay?" Burke asked, his eyes leveling on Sloan.

"It is," Lexie interrupted. "Meredith donated part of her liver to our father. Well, my father. Biologically he is her father too, but it's…messy and complicated. V-very complicated."

Burke slid a knowing glance towards Addison, who answered for the two of them. "Tell her that we hope to see her back at the hospital soon," It was a diplomatic answer and one that couldn't allude to trouble.

Or so they hoped.

Both of them knew that Meredith would be getting the low-down on their arrival soon enough from another party.

An awkward silence lingered over the table and finally Mark stood up, "As much fun as it's been, Lexie and I are going to leave you two lovebirds alone." He slid a glance to Burke who looked a little stunned by his words and then to Addison.

"Lovebirds- Wait, we're not- you think?"

Mark looked at her in question, "What?"

"What Addison is trying to say is that we're-" Burke started, but then was cut off by Addison's hand smacking his leg under the table.

"We'll see you later," Addison finished and then waited for the two of them to leave before she turned to Burke. "They think we're together. This is good. It's a plan."

"A plan? For what?" Burke asked reluctantly, "And do we really need a plan at this point? We're here. I'd say that we're past the planning portion, Addison."

Sometimes he really couldn't help but doubt her sanity.

"If we're not a threat," Addison explained, motioning between the two of them, "If we're _attached_, it gives us an in. It makes it easier. If they think we're here- if Cristina thinks you're here for the reason that you are-"

"That's not the only reason I'm here," Burke interjected. It was partially a lie.

"The point is, if we're an item, we're not a threat. What needs to be said can be said. What needs to be done will be done. It's a good cover."

Burke wasn't convinced but he wasn't in a place to argue with her either. It was Cristina and merely walking up to her and apologizing probably wouldn't get him very far. Despite his lack of faith in Addison's latest scheme, he gave the slightest of nods and lifted his beer.

Glancing towards Lexie's direction, she grabbed her own drink.

"Don't worry," Burke smirked, noting her distraction by Sloan's choice in girlfriend, "We'll close down the sandbox and he'll be all yours. Though I have to question your choice in man."

Addison shook her head, looking up at him and then playfully hitting his arm, "Oh stop. You don't know Mark. He's good. Mark can be good. When he wants to be."

Ignoring Burke's sarcastic comment, she reached for her drink and watched the two of them for only a moment more. She wished that she had seen that Mark was good before she made the decision to move away and start all over.

She wished she had known what she knew now.


	4. Chapter 4

Denial is more than just a state of being, it's an art. It's intricate and delicate, especially fragile. It should be admired and handled with care for the artist has a certain strength within themselves, even if it's to make up for a weakness they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge.

The _artist_ themselves should be handled with care as well, for they are just as fragile as the delicate work in which they have created.

Cristina Yang was that artist.

Sitting at the desk, she quietly worked on a chart and pretended not to hear the gossip, the nonstop prattle of the nurses. She imagined that instead of all eyes being on her for the obvious reasons, that people were staring her down because of something she'd done in surgery, something they'd heard about her and Owen.

They weren't staring her down because of Burke. If they were staring _anybody_ down because of Burke, it would have been Addison Montgomery.

His so-called girlfriend.

For a fleeting moment, her denial started to unravel but she quickly put a stop to it. She wasn't thinking about it because she didn't care. She didn't care because he left. He left because he didn't love her.

It was more simplistic than a basic appendectomy- open the patient, take out the bad parts, leave the good and sew them back up. That's exactly what Burke had done when he left her. He excised the bad and moved on.

He was healed and so was she.

_Whatever_.

The ink stopped flowing from the rollerball of her pen and she heaved a great sigh, shaking her beloved blue inkpen, trying to get the last little bit of life out of it. After several failed attempts she tossed it on the counter and reached into her overstuffed pockets for another.

An overdone silver pen invaded her line of vision attached to a fair skinned hand and Cristina looked up into blue eyes, taking the pen from her boyfriend, from Owen; the one that mattered. "Thanks," She mumbled before returning to her chart.

Owen sunk into the chair next to her and studied her for a long moment. She'd been upset recently, and though he suspected it was the merger, he knew he needed to get to the bottom of it. Or at least try to.

"So-" Owen started slowly, watching her carefully.

Cristina's mind automatically jumped into a defensive mode, just _knowing_ that questions were coming but just as quickly she was saved by an annoyed scoff.

"What are you saying?" Mark argued, leaning against the counter.

"I'm just saying that I'm happy for Addison, that's all." Derek said, greeting Owen with the slightest of nods. "I'm allowed to be happy for my ex-wife."

Mark wasn't oblivious to the jab, "You would have been happy for her with me."

"I just want her to have the best. I don't want her to settle. Addison deserves a good man," Derek clarified, "And Preston Burke is a good man."

Cristina snorted involuntarily and then closed her chart, almost horrified that she couldn't control her reaction.

Owen cleared his throat slightly and looked up at the two of them, "What's wrong with Burke?"

Sliding an angry gaze to Derek, Mark spoke first, "Nothing. Nothing is wrong with him, unless you don't like arrogant egoistical men. Then there's a problem."

"It's a step up from arrogant egoistical boys isn't it?" Derek laughed.

"I don't know, why don't we ask Yang?" Mark said, turning his gaze to Cristina.

"Why don't we work?" Cristina answered, standing up and pulling her chart to her chest, "I'm here to work."

Before any of them could reply, Cristina was gone and Derek looked at Mark in question and they both turned to Owen with knowing glances.

The poor man didn't have a clue.

"Am I missing something?" Owen asked, looking up at the two men.

Mark grinned from ear to ear, more than ready to fill him in on exactly what it was that he was missing. That grin faded when he felt a sharp jab in his side and he glared at Derek once again, "What wa-" He started but then noted the new addition to their party.

"Dr. Sloan, Shepherd," Burke greeted, setting a chart on the counter. He extended a hand to the redheaded man behind the counter, knowing exactly who he was. "I don't believe we've officially met yet."

"Dr. Owen Hunt, and you're Preston Burke. I've heard a lot about you," Owen smiled, completely oblivious to how much he hadn't heard.

"I'm sure that you have, Dr. Hunt," Burke deadpanned before retracting his hand. An awkward silence lingered over the men for a long moment before Burke continued, "Dr. Hunt, I received a consult on one of your patients, a motor vehicle accident with a traumatic pericardial effusion. I just wanted to let you know that I'll be taking him into surgery today to place a pericardial drain with a patch. I'll probably transfer him to the CVICU rather than leaving him in the surgical ICU. I would prefer that he be in skilled hands."

"Of course, Dr. Burke. Whatever you need," The other man obliged.

Burke considered suggesting Cristina as the primary resident on the case, but thought better of it. If he was supposed to keep up the front of being with Addison there was no way that he could bring Cristina up in front of them. "Which resident should I page regarding the patient?"

Owen thought for a minute, flipped through his patient list, "That looks like…Dr. Grey. Meredith Grey."

Derek and Mark smirked, looked at Burke. Mark put a firm hand on his shoulder with an almost sympathetic look. "Better luck next time, Burke."

Burke smiled politely, seething hatred underlying the gesture and shrugged his hand off. "If you'll excuse me, I need to locate my resident. Gentlemen,"

"Talk about feeding him to the sharks," Mark commented with a smirk, "Your post-it partner is going to tear him to shreds."

"My _wife_ will do no such thing," Derek answered in an arrogant tone, "Meredith, unlike you, is completely capable of being professional."

"Nobody in this place is professional," Owen half joked, maybe wasn't even joking at all, "Besides, what does Meredith have against Dr. Burke? Shouldn't she have something against Dr. Montgomery instead?"

Mark opened his mouth to speak once again and once more Derek stopped him, physically pulling him away under the guise of a surgery.

"What are you doing?" Mark asked, jerking his arm away from Derek. "He's completely clueless."

"It's not our place," Derek lectured, crossing his arms as he looked at Mark with a judgmental gaze.

"Don't give me that crap. You like Yang as much as you like being outdone by me,"

Derek scoffed, "I have never been outdone by you and it has nothing to do with Dr. Yang."

"Then what? Are you afraid your post-it partner will withhold sex if you say something?" Mark taunted, pulling his pager from the waistband of his scrubs.

"Yeah," Derek smirked, "Something like that."

x-x-x-x-x

Addison studied the woman across the table from her with softness in her blue eyes. She had expected some sort of contempt, some cold shoulder, but she got none of that from her. There was no idle chit-chat or conversation, no attempt at friendship or gossip- only work.

Her eyes returned to her premature patient's abdomen and excised another small piece of necrotic bowel, held back as Cristina intuitively passed suction through the field to clear it for her and then withdrew.

If Addison didn't feel like she was working against her, she felt that they would work well together.

"Dr. Yang, why don't you remove the next section of necrotic tissue?" Addison suggested, extending the small blade towards Cristina.

Cristina looked up, surprised by the offer. It had been a considerable amount of time since she'd truly worked with Addison but the Addison she remembered didn't offer residents the chance to really work on her critical patients.

As a matter of fact, she was almost sure she never offered them a chance to work on her critical patients.

Though she questioned her motives, Cristina wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. She took up the instruments and went to work in a controlled but almost ravenous manner. She was so starved for surgery that carving out two centimeters of necrotic bowel almost felt like a bypass.

"It's changed here," Addison remarked idly, using the suction catheter to keep Cristina's field cleared. "Seattle. It doesn't feel the same."

Cristina's eyes remained focused on her patient, "Because it's not Los Angeles."

Addison's eyes fixated on Cristina, "No, I didn't mean like that. I meant that it doesn't feel like the same hospital. There are new people. Old people that seem new. People that I used to know who seem like half the person that they used to be," she explained, searching the woman before her. "Maybe like they're incomplete."

It was more of a question than a statement.

"Maybe you didn't really know those people," Cristina answered coldly, finishing excising the last of the necrotic bowel from their patient. She looked straight into Addison's eyes for the first time. They were soft, sympathetic.

Maybe even understanding.

"Perhaps you're right, Dr. Yang." Addison murmured softly, resuming her work in the patient's abdomen. "The necrotic tissue is gone and vital signs are stable. I think that the patient is ready to close," Addison observed out loud, trying to drown out the awkward feeling in the room.

Cristina glanced up at her again and then nodded. She knew that Addison was uncomfortable but she wasn't going to do anything to ease that discomfort.

As far as Cristina was concerned, Addison deserved all of the discomfort that she was inflicting upon herself and more.

x-x-x-x-x

Preston Burke was a man who used surgery as a tool to focus, as a tool to gather his thoughts and put them aside. Very few times did he feel as if he weren't in control during surgery; as a matter of fact, he could only single out one person that had ever caused him to feel anything but collected in surgery.

Today, however, Meredith Grey decided to challenge that record.

Burke offered no pleasantries of letting her make the initial incision or handling the rib spreader, only let her perform her usual duties as a resident. Perhaps it was the icy glare she'd been giving him since joining him in the scrub room, or the tone she took with him during the time out procedures prior to the surgery beginning.

"Dr. Grey, if you don't mind," Burke mumbled into his surgical mask, eyeing a suspicious lesion on the heart wall.

She moved the suction catheter to clear his field and then took the opportunity to get in another good glare on her person's behalf. She didn't care if it was childish or petty or unprofessional. He was going to get a lot more than that from her the first opportunity he got.

"Have you got something in your eye, Dr. Grey?" Burke asked casually, a smirk hidden beneath his mask. He knew exactly what he was asking for.

"No, Dr. Burke," Meredith answered coolly.

"Then perhaps you could tell me exactly what's wrong with you that you have that peculiar look on your face." He answered in a smug tone.

"_Perhaps_ you could tell me exactly what's wrong with you," Meredith countered, still glaring at him.

Burke paused, looking up at her, "I'm not the one who seems to be having vision problems. Perhaps I should request another resident to finish out this case."

"Seriously, Dr. Burke? _Seriously_ ? You're going to threaten me with replacing me with another resident. Let me guess, you'd go for Cristina. That way you can stand there across the table from her and pretend like everything is perfectly fine. Like it's totally okay for you to be here."

"It would appear that it's 'totally okay' for me to be here. Richard didn't seem to hesitate in offering me my previous position here at Seattle Grace," Burke answered evenly.

"Quit playing stupid. You know what I'm talking about. This is about Cristina and you and I both know it. I'm not sure why you had to come and flaunt _Addison_ of all people in front of her but she's brok-"

Burke waved his hand to silence Meredith, narrowing his eyes again at the suspicious lesion on the patient's ventricular wall. Using the end of his forceps he manipulated the flesh around it and then recoiled as blood erupted from the lesion, the wall of the heart rupturing from the slightest touch. "Dammit!" He hissed, calling out frantically for sutures, "Grey, get more suction in there, now."

Working frantically to get the wall rupture under control, Burke took only a moment to glance up at the gallery, to find the one resident he knew that could handle this situation. She was nowhere to be seen, "Grey, page Yang. Now. I need a set of hands in here that know what they're doing."

"Tell me what to do," Meredith argued, "I can handle this."

"Page Cristina," Burke repeated, suturing only a little more frantically.

It wasn't usual that Meredith would surgically do something that she wasn't supposed to do, wasn't usual that she didn't follow orders _while_ in the OR- but this was an exception. She was protecting her person. She started suturing in tandem with Burke, her delicate fingers doing the exact same thing that Cristina's would do.

The exact same thing that Cristina _taught_ her to do.

Burke's jaw clenched as he watched but he said no more, turned his focus to the patient and pushed the rest to the side. They finished the surgery in near silence, only speaking when it pertained to the patient. Somehow Meredith's cold gaze affected him more now than it did earlier in the hour.

He watched as his patient was wheeled from the OR and then rolled his head back, closing his eyes. The hot water ran over his hands from the scrub sink and he sighed heavily. It was going to be an adjustment, being back in this hospital.

Dealing with the things he had done.

Meredith stepped into the scrub room, smacked the button to turn on the sink with unnecessary force and looked up at him, "You didn't need her. You _don't_ need her."

Burke opened his eyes and looked down at the five pound woman standing next to him, "Excuse me?"

"You don't need her. Cristina. There are other people that are perfectly capable, perfectly able to handle whatever situation it is that you're in. Cristina isn't it. Leave her alone." Meredith spoke in a firm tone, one of determination to keep her friend safe from whatever stupid thing he had concocted. "Just…leave her alone."

Meredith jerked her hands out from under the water, grabbed a towel and walked out of the room. She wouldn't tell Cristina about any of it; only because she knew that Cristina would probably think that Meredith was out of line and that she could handle herself, could handle dealing with Burke.

The thing was though, Cristina didn't see herself. She couldn't see herself a few weeks prior when she was lying in a hospital bed next to Meredith and crying, _sobbing_ about missing Burke and holding hearts and whatever other broken sentiment fell from her lips. Cristina couldn't see how broken she was.

Meredith could and she wasn't going to let him break her anymore.

x-x-x-x-x

Joe's was becoming a habit far too quickly for either one of their tastes but going to a different bar seemed almost unnatural. Addison sat next to Burke, sipping on a glass of cabernet sauvignon. Her eyes moved over the crowd in the bar, took note of Cristina sitting next to Meredith in the corner and the look on Cristina's face.

She moved her gaze over to Burke and moved so that she was sitting slightly closer to him, "Cristina is in the corner," Addison mentioned under her breath.

Burke glanced up and his eyes lingered there, the breath leaving his chest. It was the first time he'd seen her since leaving Seattle and it was no easier than the last time that he'd seen her. Everything about her still reached into his very depths and held onto his heart with a vice grip.

"Preston," Addison said softly, putting her hand over his and drawing his gaze away from Cristina. A blind person would be able to see that he still loved her very much, would be able to see the regret in his eyes.

It was too soon for people to see that though.

He reached for his beer and took a long drink of it before sitting it aside, "I think I'm going to call it an early night. It's been a long day."

"Tell me about it," Addison answered, pushing her stir around her martini glass. "I scrubbed in with her today. Cristina, I mean."

Burke looked at her, asking a million questions with his eyes but speaking none of them.

"She's not the same," It wasn't much of an elaboration but it was the most she could conclude out of the stiflingly awkward surgery.

"Nobody is," Burke replied, doing his best to avoid looking at Cristina once more.

The two sat in silence, sipping on their sorrows and regrets as the world moved around them. When they were both full of their own pity, they stood to depart the bar only to be stopped by Derek, accompanied by Mark and Owen.

"Addison," Derek nodded, sitting down next to her.

"Derek," Addison smiled, standing to give him a hug. Before she could sit back down, Mark grabbed onto her arm.

"What am I? I may be an ex, but he's your ex-husband. I should have gotten the first hug," He commented with a smug grin before pulling her into his arms.

She lingered for perhaps a second longer than she should have; taking just a moment to breathe in his familiar scent, except it wasn't so familiar anymore. "Mark, what the hell are you wearing?" Addison asked with a sour face.

"It's Ed Hardy," He answered, pulling away with a disappointed look, "What? You don't like it?"

"It's his attempt at trying to be fifteen for his fifteen year old girlfriend," Derek jabbed with a laugh, "Tell him how ridiculous he smells."

Addison brushed her hand over the leather jacket and then frowned, "The Armani was better. It suited you."

"The Armani was old. It was outdated," Mark scowled.

"_You're_ old and outdated," Derek smirked, patting his shoulder.

Owen shook his head at the two of them, "You two are the same age aren't you?"

Derek looked to Owen, slightly offended by his defense of Mark. "And I thought we were friends,"

"Looks as if you've been betrayed," Burke remarked dryly, his eyes moving to the man that was dating Cristina. That had physically _hurt_ Cristina, intentionally or not. It took a lot not to do the same to him just thinking of it.

Owen's glance met Burke's and he thought he noted contempt but chose to ignore it, deciding instead to carry on conversation with the man. Cristina had been missing cardiothoracics, had been lost without a mentor and now was the perfect opportunity to bring it up.

x-x-x-x-x

"I can't watch this," Cristina groaned softly, burying her face into her arms. "Is he _seriously_ sitting with Burke?"

Meredith couldn't help but laugh at least a little bit at her friend's pain, "He's doing a lot more than sitting with him. They're having a full blown conversation."

"What could they possibly be talking about?" Cristina asked, jerking her head up. "What does he have to say to him? They're not friends. They can't be friends."

"They probably wouldn't even be talking if you had told Owen about Burke by now."

"Aren't there enough nurses talking for me?" Cristina groaned, "Seriously? They never shut up. He should have heard by now."

Meredith smirked, "I'm not even dating Owen, but I know enough to know that he doesn't listen to the nurses. At all. Ever."

Cristina sighed, watching them. "I'm going to have to go over there, aren't I?"

"I don't know," Meredith answered, picking at a peanut shell. "I think you should stay here. This is fun."

"Yeah," Cristina sneered, sliding off of her barstool, "For you."

With a pout, Meredith watched as Cristina skulked across the bar, jacket in hand but then her expression brightened when she realized that the ensuing show could be as entertaining as the previous one.

x-x-x-x-x

It was a fight to keep a straight face for Burke as Owen carried on, obviously clueless to his past with Cristina, but he did it. It was just like Cristina, to never once mention to her boyfriend that they had been involved, had been ridiculously close to marriage.

The predictability of it all made him nostalgic for a different time; a time when he had been in Owen's shoes.

"I have a few surgeries that she can scrub in on this week," Burke finally spoke to Owen's near-plea to let Cristina get her hands into a few procedures, even if it could be considered favoritism.

"I'm sure she'll be quite excited to work _under_ you once again, Burke." Mark joked causing Derek to nearly spit out his beer.

"Just don't ride her too hard," Derek added, wiping his mouth with a napkin to disguise a grin.

Burke coughed to cover up a laugh, looking away from Owen. For the first time since he'd come to Seattle, he was actually enjoying himself.

Even if it was at the expense of Cristina's boyfriend.

"Don't get too hard on her though," Mark continued, "She may not be able to handle it."

"Cristina is tough," Owen answered the accusation, "She can handle more than you think. I'm sure she can handle anything that Burke puts her up against. She's worked under him before."

The entire table burst into laughter, leaving Owen confused as to what was so funny. He chuckled nervously with them, pretending to know what was going on until he felt a hand on his lower back. Glancing over, he smiled to see Cristina at his side, "We were just discussing you."

Mark cleared his throat and reached for his jacket, "That's my cue to leave."

Derek grabbed onto Mark's arm to make him stay. He was aware that the show could just be starting, "Not yet. You haven't even finished your beer."

Cristina glared at Derek and then shifted her gaze to Owen, "Are you ready to get out of here? I want to go home."

Owen glanced at his watch with a furrowed brow, "It's still early."

"It is early," Burke echoed, watching her closely. "You should sit down and have a drink with us."

Her gaze shifted to Burke for a moment before she leaned over to Owen and whispered something into his ear, blatantly trying to get under Burke's skin.

It was working.

With slightly reddened cheeks, Owen put some money on the table and stepped down from his seat, "When they say you have to go, you have to go, right?" He laughed softly, "I'll catch you guys later, we need to do this more often."

"Of course," Burke answered in a hollow voice, not watching him as he responded, but Cristina instead. He watched as the two of them walked away, her fingers laced with his and his gaze darkened considerably.

"Looks like you won't be the one that's riding her hard," Mark grinned, looking at the distracted man across from him.

Afraid of blowing their cover, Addison did the only thing she could. She leaned over, put a hand against his cheek and kissed him softly to draw his attention from the woman that he'd rather be with. "Maybe we should go too," She murmured in a low voice.

Mark stood up once again, having seen more than enough. "I need to get out of here too. It may not be late but I have an early surgery."

Swirling the last bit of scotch in his glass with a smug grin, Derek looked to Mark. "_So_ much better," he quipped before bidding a goodnight to the duo and crossing the bar to Meredith.

Addison shrugged apologetically after they were in the clear, "Sorry. You were being a little more than obvious."

"I apologize," He answered, finishing his beer and then standing up. "Sloan seemed offended at your actions. Perhaps he's not as infatuated with Grey as one would suppose."

Changing the subject was easier.

"Are you kidding? He shaved his goatee off. He's wearing cologne made for kids in college. I'd say that Mark Sloan isn't an option. Which is fine with me because I'll just steal Richard's job and marry the hospital instead."

"You're going to have to fight me for it," Burke remarked dryly, walking out of the bar with her.

Addison wasn't deterred by his words as she laid a hand against the back of his arm, "Oh no. We have bigger plans for you, Preston. Much bigger plans."


	5. Chapter 5

Lexie Grey wasn't a beautiful woman. She was petite and had a bubbly smile and bright eyes, but she wasn't beautiful; she was cute. Cute in puppies, bunnies and kittens kind of way; like newborn babies and those annoying animated Christmas decorations that people boast in their front yards during the holiday season.

Cute wasn't something that suited Mark Sloan.

Addison tried very silently, to wrap her head around the relationship, tried to find Mark's appeal in whatever it was that this cute young woman had to offer him and the only solution was far too disturbing to put into though. She took a long drink of her wine, sitting on the couch next to Callie.

The invitation into the lion's den had been a complete accident on Lexie's part, more of a nervous stammering suggestion, really. Addison had accepted it on the slightest hope that Cristina would be there and she could focus on finding more out about her boyfriend and how serious they were.

If she were to be honest, she was really starting to enjoy the spy thing.

To her dismay, Cristina was menacingly absent and so she found herself in a space that she deemed far too small to contain Mark and his Snuggle-bear sweet girlfriend. Addison reached for her wine, the soothing liquid far too close to the bottom of the glass.

"Tell me what I'm doing here again," She sighed softly to Callie, watching the disturbing couple with dismay.

"You're drinking a glass of wine with your friend," Callie answered, "Waiting to meet my girlfriend and watching them. He's happy, you know. Mark. I didn't get it at first, well, I did because there was this intern that I thought- well, I knew that she thought I was cute. Or at least I think she did. And then little Grey was off limits because of-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa- _little_ Grey?" Addison scoffed, "That's disgusting."

"Yeah, it's weird. I get it. But…it works. For Mark, it works." Callie said wistfully, watching her. "Besides, you're doing the Burke thing. That's weird, isn't it? Knowing his history?"

"Where _is_ Cristina, speaking of his history?" Addison answered, quickly changing the subject.

"I don't know. We don't really keep tabs. I'm pretty sure she hates you for the Burke thing, though. How did that happen?"

Addison shrugged, "It just happened," Her eyes traced back up to Mark as she spoke, "It's that thing that happens. There's this person that's in your life and they're a good friend and nothing more, and then they're not there anymore. For whatever reason you move on and then the only person you can think about is them. You keep thinking what if and you get angry at yourself because you should have given him a chance and then you're sad because you realize what a colossal mess your life is and how you should have done so many things differently-"

"Addison," Callie interrupted, reaching for the wine to fill her glass, "Maybe I wasn't always in tune with what was going on when he was here because there were other issues and everything and those people weren't even really on my radar- but it doesn't sound like you're talking about Burke."

She glanced up, "What? Oh. No. Maybe not. Mostly, though. It just happened. He's a good guy, though."

"Really? Because good guys don't live girls in a church," Callie commented quietly.

"He regrets it. Preston is a good man and he has a lot of regrets, and maybe he wasn't thinking at the time, maybe he was but that is his biggest one." Addison answered quickly and then tried not to visibly recoil at her own words.

"That wasn't _totally_ obvious," The raven haired woman answered standing and grabbing Addison by the elbow to drag her out of the living room and into her own bedroom. She closed the door and turned to face the guilty redhead. "Okay, spill."

x-x-x-x-x

There was a time that Cristina used to stand before the board and smile at how many times she saw her name paired with his in a day. Not because of the typical girly reasons, not because it was the man she lived with and loved- but it meant that she got to save lives. It meant that she got to hold hearts and feel them beat, even after they had stopped and it meant she was seen.

A tiny remote part of her brain may have found it hot that the man she loved was only one of the best heart surgeons in the country to, but she often ignored that part of her brain then.

She was ignoring the instinct to run now.

Her name was paired with his, over and over again, booked into one last surgery this evening and a fourteen hour day for tomorrow. Cristina used to relish and hope for fourteen hour days at Burke's side , the kind of days that meant she'd be going home with a sore body, an empty stomach and a full bladder with nothing more than the intentions of sleeping.

Those used to be her kind of days and now she was torn.

Cristina had still been praying for those kinds of days, had wanted to desperately to be seen again; to not feel like a ghost. In the very same instance, however, it was _Burke_ and that wasn't what she wanted.

Or was it?

She'd been asking for him not even a couple of weeks ago, spewing to Meredith how much she missed him and that he saw her; next time, Cristina would know to be careful what she wished for.

Her eyes trailed over the words on the glaring marker board as she mentally tried to prepare herself for not the procedures- she could do them in her sleep- but standing across the table from the man she once loved. The man she hadn't been able to stop thinking about since the moment he left her or even before.

The man she still missed.

Burke watched from a few feet away as she studied the board and wisely chose to remain back. At first, he had nearly bought her coffee but he thought better of it, forecasting a nasty confrontation if he had tried to give her a cup. The last thing he wanted was to upset her, especially after using her boyfriend for entertainment purposes almost nearly since the moment he got here.

It would be fun for a while, until Hunt really found out the truth and then it wouldn't be so entertaining anymore for any of them.

Least of all, Cristina.

Almost as if she could feel him staring at her, she turned to look at him. He half expected a scowl or narrowed eyes, some form of disgruntled greeting but she looked incredibly placid to him. Burke thought momentarily that the calm scared him more; he knew there had to be a storm brewing underneath, but even her eyes betrayed that sentiment.

Cristina approached him at a steady pace, not too quickly and not too slowly, no hesitation and no rush; just as if it was another day. She pulled a patient list from her pocket and glanced at it for a moment before looking up to him.

"Dr. Burke," Her voice sounded just as she appeared, not a hint of bitterness or bite to it.

Burke would be lying to himself if he weren't surprised by her demeanor. He had expected bitterness and anger, he'd even steeled himself against the tone that he knew she'd use.

The fact that she was anything but angry hurt worse.

"Dr. Yang," He replied, his tone shaky at best.

"I got a page about ten minutes ago. Our first patient is in pre-op, prepped and ready to go. Scrubs and anesthesia are ready to take the patient in the OR whenever you're ready," She started to ramble off, "Pre-op is going to send for our second patient at your ready rather than having them sit in pre-op forever because of recent problems with backlog in the perioperative area and surgeries not clearing out from the ORs quickly enough. We don't have enough staff to-"

"There have been a lot of cuts," Burke observed, "Nurses. Ancillary staff. I'm honestly surprised that Richard took me on."

"We haven't had a cardiothoracic surgeon for any steady amount of time since you left," Cristina stated matter-of-factly, "I can page the pre-op nurse once the patient is off pump. That gives enough time to notify the unit nurse, get the patient downstairs prepped and ready. I assumed that you would be okay with that."

He wasn't surprised about her unwillingness to make small talk, "That would be fine, Dr. Yang. Go notify the pre-op nurse that they can move the patient to the OR and then meet me there. If I'm running behind, you may start the case up to placing the rib spreaders without me."

"Don't do that," Cristina sighed, "Don't."

"Don't do what, Dr. Yang? I have several patients to follow up on and you're a third year resident. Not only do I trust that you can open a patient up, I _know_ that you can," Burke replied, his voice stern. Letting her open may have been an ulterior motive to get some form of emotion out of her, even just to see the excitement in her eyes again about surgery but he was going to try like hell to play it off. "So when I ask you to start the case without me if I'm running late, I expect you to start the case without me, Dr. Yang. Am I clear?"

Cristina physically stepped back as his voice seemed to rise and she clenched her fists at her side, "Yes, Dr. Burke."

"Thank you, Dr. Yang." Burke spoke firmly before turning away from her without another word. It killed him to walk away, to not say everything that had been lingering in his mind since the moment that he last walked away from her.

Patience had always been one of his stronger traits until he met Cristina. After that, everything he'd ever known about himself had gone out the window, patience included.

x-x-x-x-x

The party had somehow migrated from the apartment to Joe's and Addison sat along happily with Callie, who now gave her knowing glances far too often and sipped on a glass of merlot. Mark sat on the other side of Callie, arching an eyebrow every now and then at commentary from the raven-haired woman but never really seemed to catch on.

Addison glanced around, somewhat concerned with the fact that she hadn't seen or heard from Preston all day but once again didn't see him amongst the crowd. She compulsively checked her blackberry again for missed calls or text messages and then glanced at her watch, only to follow it up with inwardly cursing herself because she could have easily checked the time on her blackberry.

"Last I heard, your so-called man was riding Yang in the hallway," Mark teased, waving to Joe to fill up her glass.

Derek scoffed, lifting his single malt scotch to take a drink, "That joke is old, Sloan. Like you. Give it up."

"I am _not_ old," Mark argued, "None of us are old."

A collective mumbled yes we are rose from their group with the exception of Lexie who looked up from her frozen strawberry margarita, her cheeks the color of the concocted beverage. Never before had she felt so left out of a group that was supposed to be her peers.

"Age is nothing but a number," Mark tried to protest but was once again met with another fit of arguments. He opened his mouth to further challenge the group but was interrupted by Owen joining the group.

"Has anybody seen Cristina?" He asked, pulling up a seat next to Derek. "I tried to text her but she wasn't answering. Her name was on the board with Burke's but Debbie said that surgery wrapped up at least two hours ago. The only thing left cooking is an appy."

Addison slid a curious glance to Callie and then to Owen, "I couldn't tell you. Preston had some paperwork to do and patients to follow up on. He told me he'd be late. Cristina was on his service today, I imagine she's still working."

"Right," Owen nodded and offered a smile, "Thanks Addison."

Embarrassed blue eyes turned back to the drink in front of her and she reached for it. "Callie, quit looking at me." She said under her breath.

"You totally covered for Burke. Or Yang. Or both of them. They could be- and you're- Addison, this is bad. You're so bad."

"Callie," She hissed again after taking a long but not nearly satisfying enough drink, "Let it go."

"So wrong," Callie remarked, reaching for her drink, "So wrong on so many levels."

Addison sighed, glancing at the door again. She wasn't sure how helping out a friend could be wrong, if she were even helping him out that is. Her finger traced around the rim of her wine glass as her mind idly went through the consequences of what would happen when they were caught. When, because she'd lost her confidence in the plan she'd come up with.

It was the first time that Addison had allowed herself to doubt what she was doing in Seattle. Mark was clearly happy, Yang was unavailable and Addison was in some thinly veiled fake relationship with Burke.

This wasn't what they were supposed to be doing. Not for real. It was an adjustment, and there was a period in which they were supposed to adjust but the only thing they were doing was living on big fat lie that was so wrong on so many levels.

Maybe it was time to come up with a plan b.

x-x-x-x-x

Cristina worked next to Burke, wrapping up their charts from the day. She didn't have to turn her head to know that Burke was looking at her, that he was watching. Her eyes moved down so that they were fixed on the pathetic excuse for handwriting that she was using, "What?" She asked in an empty tone.

"I'm sorry," Burke spoke softly. As if he didn't deserve to say the words. He didn't even know if it was an apology for before or an apology for staring at her now.

"Its fine," Cristina mumbled.

"It isn't," He murmured, "I am sorry, Cristina. Unbelievably sorry." It hadn't started as an apology for _that_ but somehow it had morphed into that. "If I could-"

"Burke," She murmured softly, "Just stop. Stop. It's fine. I'm fine. We're fine. Just drop it."

"We're fine?" He asked, surprised.

Cristina looked up at him and she thought back over her statement and realized that the words had come out unbidden. She didn't answer him. Cristina wanted to look away but she couldn't tear her gaze from his.

She hadn't counted on ever seeing him again, ever speaking to him and even though she'd seen him before, now she was really _looking_. She was hearing his voice and the way he said her name and it was overwhelming to her. His eyes still glimmered with that look that he'd always given her- even when he was letting her go, when he was telling her that it was over, she saw it.

That look was still there.

The look that spoke a million things all at once, that made her feel a million things all at once without him ever having to utter even one of the three words that she knew that gaze meant.

He couldn't look at her like that.

Burke breathed her name softly, his eyes fixed with hers. Every part of him longed to reach out to her, to pull her into his arms and kiss the hell out of her and take it all back. Sex had never made anything better for them, if anything it was a mechanism of avoidance but it didn't make it any less tempting.

Especially after he'd gone so long without her.

"Addison," Cristina finally said in a shaky voice. "You have Addison."

She turned away from him, walked away as quickly as she could. The air was too thin and the implications were too heavy.

It was all too much.

Burke watched as she walked away, unfazed by her sudden escape. In all actuality, he couldn't help but feel a glimmer of hope as he watched her disappear into the dark hallway.

He glanced down at his watch and then pulled his phone from his pocket. He needed to find Addison and he needed to find her now.

x-x-x-x-x

Addison sat quietly at the bar, picking apart a small peanut and humming along with the music overhead when Burke finally joined her at Joe's. The rest of the crowd had long departed but she found herself not wanting to leave yet, not ready to go home alone.

Not when she was second guessing herself.

Burke walked into the familiar bar that had become more of a second home to the both of them, his step noticeably lighter and Addison furrowed her brow.

He wasn't allowed to be in a good mood when she was in a bad one.

After sitting down and ordering a beer he glanced down at his friend, noting the misery painted across her expression, "Why do you look like that?"

"Me?" Addison scoffed, "Why do you look like _that_?" She studied him for a second and her eyes widened, "What _were_ you doing that took so long?"

"Paperwork," Burke answered with a smirk, "What do you think I was doing?"

"You mean who and Cristina," Addison answered pointedly, "Hunt was anxious and looking for her and she wasn't answering her phone. I covered for you,"

A wry grin crossed the man's lips, "We were _working_, and it's good that he's anxious. He should be."

"What makes you say that?" She asked warily, not sure if she was enjoying the fact that he was in a good mood when she was ready to give up. Addison wanted somebody to commiserate with.

"Before she walked away from me, she told me that I had you- there was no mention of Hunt or that she was involved in a relationship. Her mention is that _I_ was in a relationship."

Addison's brow arched, "So what? You think that she's not really-"

"I don't know what it means. I just know that she would have said his name, would have mentioned it if he's as significant as he's supposed to be." Or at least that's what Burke was hoping for.

"What are you going to do?"

The faintest smile crossed Burke's lips, "I'm going to fight like hell to get her back."

Addison couldn't keep a smile from breaking out on her face. For the first time since they'd arrived, Preston had found some sort of determination and just when she was ready to give up. Maybe it was a sign that their idea wasn't as flawed as she'd been thinking it was.

The two of them sat in silence next to each other, sipping at their drinks and contemplating the now very real possibilities of the future.

All the needed was one more chance.


	6. Chapter 6

Addison dragged herself against the cold hardwood floors of her apartment to the smell of fresh coffee being brewed. She wasn't used to such a ruckus in the morning coming from her own dwellings. While it may have been a rude awakening five minutes ago, now that Preston was handing her a large mug filled with steaming hot coffee, it was the best wakeup call ever.

"I think you need to sleep on my couch all the time," Addison commented before taking a sip of the soothing brown liquid and the setting the mug down on the counter. She brought her hand to her temples and massaged gently.

"Headache?" Burke asked with a smug grin as he raised his own coffee cup to his lips.

"Something like that," She answered with a look of disdain. "You're making breakfast too? If Cristina doesn't take you back, I want you."

With a small chuckle, Burke checked the omelet near completion in the pan, "I didn't think that you'd mind me foraging through your kitchen for breakfast so long as there was some for you as well."

"No. Forage away. As a matter of fact, you can forage all the time that way I don't have to cook. I hate cooking," She grumbled sitting on the countertop.

Burke smiled as he slid the omelet onto a plate, perfectly timed with a slice of toast popping out of the toaster. He handed the filled plate to her, "I'll keep that in mind."

Addison shook her head slightly in disbelief at him, "You really are perfect aren't you? I mean, is there one messed up thing about you at all? It's disgusting, Preston. You're disgusting."

"There's at least one messed up thing about me," He assured her, "If there wasn't, I wouldn't be here making you breakfast, would I?"

"I suppose not," She answered before taking a bite of her toast, "So…what's the plan for today? Are we going to call it quits for Cristina's benefit? I can do the angry and jaded ex thing. I've got lots of experience in that role."

"No," Burke answered with an apologetic smile, "Not yet. The plan for today is working. I have a busy schedule and a lot of patients that need my attention. So today, I'm working."

"But what about-" Addison started to protest. She needed to work on his plans so that she didn't have to think about her own.

"Working," Burke repeated, putting away the last of his mess. "I need to run home before I head in. I'll see you at the hospital?"

"Of course," Addison answered idly, not happy with the decision of today being just a regular day. She stabbed at her breakfast with her fork, waiting until the door was closed and her apartment was empty before muttering a dammit under her breath and heading towards her bathroom to shower.

x-x-x-x-x

Tattered pieces of coffee cup fell to the floor, bit by bit, each little piece another piece of the puzzle, every tiny shred another piece of Cristina's resolve, gathered into a pile at her feet. Her eyes remained fixed to the cup but she wasn't looking at it, she wasn't really looking at _anything_; she was only thinking.

Thinking was always dangerous activity for her; doubts and thoughts had cost her so much in the past and now was no exception. There was so much she'd hidden from Owen, so much that he didn't know about her yet.

Cristina didn't think that he'd be upset with her at first for not mentioning it; it's not like it was something pressing or important. It was a piece of the past and it didn't affect the present so much- maybe only a little bit. Now though?

Now he was going to be upset.

She had no intention of telling him anytime soon. Cristina wished that somebody else would mention it, that somebody else could 'accidentally' bring up their past so that Owen would know and she wouldn't feel _as_ guilty. Honestly she didn't care what he felt about it because he didn't deal with it and it wasn't his business, she was too busy wrapped up in how she felt about it to nurse his feelings right now.

The door opened behind her and Cristina heard somebody stumble but she didn't turn to see who the intruder was. Whoever it was, clearly their bones weren't broken and therefore not a surgical emergency and completely undeserving of her attention right now.

A couple more curse words coming from a sweet voice however finally caused curiosity to pull her from drowning in her own thoughts and she turned around to see what the disruption was.

Lexie stood there shuffling more than walking in a pair of ridiculously high stiletto heels. Instead of her normal jeans and sweater, she was wearing a black pencil skirt that had to make it pretty close to impossible for her to walk and a button down blouse that was left incredibly low. Her brown hair was twisted up into a bun with a few tendrils hanging down and she looked like anything except Lexie.

Cristina couldn't help but laugh, "What the hell happened to you?"

"Nothing happened to me," Lexie stammered, "I'm fine. What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing is wrong with me," Cristina retorted.

With a very slow and careful gait, Lexie walked towards the bench. It was only a few more feet and she knew she could make it. The skirt was too tight and her feet were aching and if she could only make it a few more feet then she could pull on her scrubs and her comfortable tennis shoes and she wouldn't have to look at the damn heels for at least another ten hours. She could make a few feet.

"Did you just learn how to walk yesterday?" Cristina quipped, watching her carefully. "Maybe you should try wearing something besides stripper heels."

"Maybe you should try minding your own business," Lexie snapped back at her and then felt her face turn red with embarrassment. "Sorry."

"No, it's fine. This is entertaining," The other woman smirked. She needed distraction and Lexie trying to be Addison was certainly enough entertainment for her. It took her mind off of everything else if at least for a few minutes.

Lexie carefully sat down next to her, reaching back to make sure that she would hit her target and not rip her skirt at the same time, "I just don't get it," Lexie finally sighed, pulling the chocolate colored Stuart Weitzman heel from her foot . The damn thing was going to take up her lunch money for the next month at least. "How can she be so perfect? How can she walk in these heels and sit in these skirts without splitting a seam? How? Nobody is that perfect. I need her to have one flaw. Like a giant ass or a oozing and festering sore in the middle of her ridiculously perfect face."

Cristina looked at the young woman next to her, pulling off her heels and rubbing her feet as she tried so hard to compete with a woman that Meredith herself had once been competing with. She couldn't help but find the irony in all of it and glanced back down to the tattered pieces of paper on the ground.

"Honestly," Lexie continued, "I don't even know why I'm worried about it. It's not like I should even care because Addison doesn't want to date Mark at all. She's dating your ex-fiancé. And they're happy and stuff, right? They look like happy people."

If Cristina had been a good friend or colleague or whatever twisted relationship it was that she shared with Lexie, she would have given her the reassurance that she was asking for. She would have told her to stop dressing like something that she wasn't and be secure in who she was but it was almost too entertaining for her not to share the secret she'd known since Burke and Addison said they were dating, "They're not together," Cristina answered in a quiet voice, glancing around. "He's not dating her. It's not real."

"They are too. You've seen them at Joe's," Lexie answered in a sympathetic tone, "It's really bothering-"

"No," Cristina sighed, standing up and sending little pieces of coffee cup all over the place, "It's totally transparent."

"It doesn't look transparent to me," Lexie fought back weakly.

"He-" Cristina started and then fell quiet. How could she put it into words that Burke doesn't look at Addison the same way that he looked at her? The same way that he was looking at her last night? She shook her head and bent over to pick up the scraps of Styrofoam. "They're not together, okay. I just know."

"Do you miss him?" Lexie asked quietly, watching Cristina. "I mean, because you sound a-almost relieved. When you said they weren't together. And you obviously care that they're not together otherwise you w-wouldn't correct me whenever I say that they're together. You'd just let me believe that they're together."

Cristina looked up at Lexie, her eyes cold. It was definitely something that was off topic with her if Owen didn't even know about it. She lowered her voice, forced a cold and twisted smirk onto her face, "The only reason I told you is because I enjoy watching you try to walk in those heels and be something that you'll never be. Addison is impossibly perfect. Ask Meredith. She'd know."

Lexie watched as Cristina dropped her coffee cup into the trashcan and then followed her across the room with her eyes as she left the locker room. She turned back to the shoe in her hand and sighed heavily. "It's going to take me a long time to get used to you," She mumbled to the shoe before carefully laying it in the bottom of her locker.

x-x-x-x-x

Mark sat quietly in his office, trying to focus on the patients he needed to see. For the entirety of his morning his mind had been everywhere that it wasn't supposed to be. Things had been different for him since Addison had come back to Seattle. Not different like he'd been doing something that he wasn't supposed to be or different he wanted to, just different.

Lexie was acting different, doing things differently. She was saying things and doing things and trying her best to be everything except for what she was and now she'd taken it to extremes. He half expected her to come home with red hair one day, blue contacts- anything else that would make her not herself.

If she tried any harder, she was going to cease being Lexie altogether.

The sound of heels echoing down the hallway drew his attention up to the door and he paused for a moment. They sounded far too steady to be Lexie and he smiled to himself proudly when Addison appeared in his doorway.

He still knew what she sounded like coming down the hallway.

"Addison, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" He asked with a cocky grin, taking a moment to glance down at her legs and then mentally smacking himself for doing so.

"I have a patient," Addison answered, glancing up from her file. She pulled it out from the stack in her arms and placed in front of him on the desk. "She's a twenty-four weeker born last night. Severe cleft lift and palate. I know it's not emergent but if we fix it now, she'll grow faster, the family can get her home more quickly- less time with a feeding tube."

"Is she strong enough?" Mark asked, rubbing the back of his head as he glanced over the notes. Working on extremely low birth weight babies wasn't necessarily his favorite thing to do.

Addison was really the only person who had the capability of talking him into it.

"Surprisingly, yes. Obviously ventilated with the underdeveloped lungs, but her vital signs have all been within normal limits. I think the sooner we get her into surgery the better. The less trauma that she has to undergo overall- Mark, I know that you don't like taking on these cases but-"

"I'll do it," He answered, picking up the file and handing it to her, "Next week. Let her get some time out of the womb and get adjusted. I'll take her to surgery on Monday."

Addison smiled taking the file from him, "The parents will be thrilled. Their son suffered similar circumstances and they've had lifelong problems because of late intervention," She rambled and then stopped, "Really. Thank you, Mark."

Mark looked up at her, his gaze burning into hers, "You're welcome Addie," He said in that rumble of a voice that always turned her stomach in knots and reminded her why she threw away eleven years of a dull marriage for one night with _him_.

She just wished she could figure out why she threw away 60 days of trying in earnest to prove that he loved her on Alex Karev. That thought still resurfaced feelings of self-loathing, though it didn't usually take much.

"Well, I-uh…I should go," Addison stammered a little, walking backwards, her back bumping into the wall. She felt her cheeks redden slightly when he laughed at her and she scowled before turning around to walk out the door.

Casually, she glanced over her shoulder to see Mark's eyes tracing up her legs and she smiled to herself before continuing down the hallway.

"I've still got it," She mumbled to herself.

Today wasn't such a bad day after all.

x-x-x-x-x

"More wine?" Addison offered, holding out the bottle after pouring herself another generous glass. Between Mark checking out her legs, getting her preemie into surgery next week and a couple of successful surgeries, Addison had cause to celebrate.

Burke raised his hand, "No thank you. I think I've had my fill. You're going to regret that tomorrow morning. Like you did this morning."

"You're no fun, Preston. You should live a little," Addison smirked, setting the bottle down and raising her glass. "We had good days."

"You had a good day. I had a busy day," He corrected her. "I only came over fearing that you may have starved if I didn't."

"I'm more than capable of cooking for myself. I only said that you should come over more often so that I _didn't_ have to cook."

He smiled but said nothing. It would pain him to admit that he was tired of living in an empty apartment aloud, that he was tired of being so incredibly close to what he wanted yet so impossibly far away at the same time.

"What's on the agenda for tomorrow?" Addison asked after a swallow of her wine, "More of the same?"

"More of the same," He echoed, standing to clean up their dishes.

"When are you going to talk to her again?" She asked, helping him clean up. "You can't just leave it like that. It sounds to me like you were going to get somewhere."

"Cristina will let me know when it's time to talk again," Burke answered confidently, putting the plates away. "I pushed her. Before, I went at my own pace and I never waited for Cristina to do what Cristina wanted. I won't make the same mistakes again. So tomorrow is more of the same and the day after that. It will be more of the same until Cristina tells me that it's different."

Addison smiled warmly at her friend, put her hand on his shoulder. "And when Cristina decides that it's different, she'll be very lucky to have you."

Burke offered a small smile with his disagreement, "I'll be the lucky one."

His friend had no reply to that and they continued to clean up from their meal in silence. They parted ways with a hug and a quiet goodbye and Burke left her apartment to head to his own. Slowly he walked down the stairs with the faintest hope of at least catching a glimpse of Cristina.

He'd said that he was letting her take her time, letting her have her space; it was all up to her. It didn't mean that it wasn't murder to be apart from her, that it wasn't painful to wait for more. While Burke was sure that he deserved much more than the pain of waiting for her to come around, it didn't mean that he enjoyed it.

When he saw Cristina sitting on the edge of his car with her arms crossed, eyes focused on the ground his step faltered and he froze for a moment. He wasn't really expecting to see or hear from her anytime soon, especially not outside of work. He spoke her name softly, eyes lingering on her form, her sagging shoulders.

She seemed upset.

Cristina cleared her throat, but didn't raise her gaze to his. "I thought- No, I knew. I knew that you weren't really with Addison, that you two weren't together. I've never seen your car here, never seen you guys together except at Joe's or in obvious places. It's so incredibly transparent. Or it was. And then I was coming home after rounding on my last patient and your car was here. And I don't _care_ that you're with her, I _don't_. Except I knew that you weren't but your car is here and you're never here-"

Burke approached her slowly, stood only a couple of inches in front of her. He spoke her name again, this time more firmly, interrupting her angry rambling. Despite his better judgment he reached out to tip her chin upwards and turn her gaze towards his. "I'm not with her, Cristina. You knew that. You _know_ that," He spoke softly. "It was just dinner. She's just a friend."

"I don't care," Cristina answered weakly, pushing his hand away.

"Of course you don't," He murmured.

She stood up straighter, her body unbearably close to his and she stayed there, his breath tickling her nose and her eyes fixed on the buttons of his red button-up shirt. She could smell his cologne and almost feel his heart beating as hard as hers. Her eyes traced upwards slowly over his neck to the strong line of his jaw, the dimple in his chin, his lips. Cristina parted her own lips and a shaky breath escaped when she felt his hand move softly to rest on her hip.

Her eyes met his and they glimmered with all of the things she was fighting back. She looked at him through half lidded eyes, her lips close and inviting and her hand clutching the arm of his jacket of its own volition as if she were bracing herself.

"Cristina?" The sound of her own name shouldn't have made her blood run like ice through her veins, but in that instance, exceptions were to be made.

Though her eyes were closed now in anticipation of what was to come, she could already see the confused and angry glare in Owen's eyes. She didn't push Burke away quickly, aware that it would only make her appear guiltier than what she already was. Instead she straightened herself out and cleared her throat slightly.

Owen looked between the two of them incredulously and rather than turning to walk away from them, he walked towards the door of her apartment complex. He obviously expected an explanation.

Cristina only wished that she had one. She didn't know what the hell she was doing. It was just happening and she'd never be able to explain how she was drawn to Burke in a way that she shouldn't be.

"Are you okay?" Burke asked, very aware of Owen's history to physical outbursts, unintentional or not.

She shook her head, "You should go. I'm fine. Nothing happened."

Reluctantly, he walked around his side of the car watching as Cristina walked towards Hunt. He was afraid to leave her, unsure of whether or not she was really safe. Burke didn't know the man well enough to really understand what had happened prior to his arrival and while he didn't want to jump to conclusions, he wasn't really willing to take chances when it came to Cristina either.

Cristina turned for a moment, looked at Burke with a pained expression and then turned back to Owen. Her head hung as she heard his car pull away and she swallowed hard, hoping to find some sort of words to explain all of this away.

She just wasn't sure which part she wanted to explain away.


	7. Chapter 7

It hadn't exactly been an argument that Cristina expected to _win_. There wasn't really a good excuse as to why she hadn't told him, nor was there a good way to talk herself out of how she had let it slipped her mind to bring it up after Burke resurfaced in Seattle.

There was a lot of yelling, she remembered, more from him than her. There was a lot of silence on her part, a lot of guilt for something that didn't happen; her original argument that she didn't do anything was mute point two seconds into the argument when he pointed out that if he had been one iota of a second later he would have caught them kissing rather than her doing nothing.

Owen was right.

He asked her over and over again, _why_, and she simply didn't know. She couldn't explain it. Cristina didn't know why she was going to kiss him, she didn't know how they got in that position, she didn't even know what would have happened.

She knew that she wanted to happen. In a way, she needed it to happen. Maybe it was closure, maybe it was attraction, and maybe it was simply that it was _Burke_ and she missed him. There were too many maybes.

Maybe it was that she simply still loved him, that nobody else would ever be _him_.

Whatever the reason, her evening ended standing on her doorstep and watching Owen walk away from her. The damage that was done was probably irreparable; she had stood by and let him be mocked by his colleagues while making innuendo referring to her working with Burke, let him remain in the dark on it all until the worst possible moment.

Owen had argued that he would have fought harder for her if he knew that there was a reason to fight. It was at that point that Cristina looked up at him and smiled sadly and then told him goodbye.

Cristina wasn't a romantic, she didn't believe in fairy tales and happy endings; she was jaded enough to know it wasn't real. She did however, feel that she deserved somebody who would fight for her all the time, even if there was no reason to fight at all.

x-x-x-x-x

Addison stood over her newest patient's isolette, murmuring soft words of encouragement. Her hand ran gently over the soft skin of the neonate, smiled when she felt the strong grip around her index finger.

She could be having the worst day ever and all she needed to do was spend some time with her babies and it made everything better.

Mark stood just a few feet away, mesmerized by the woman before him. He knew that he shouldn't be, that the things going his mind were incredibly wrong but he couldn't help himself. He could never help himself when it came to Addison.

His eyes softened when he saw the smile tracing her lips and he reflexively smiled too.

He truly believed he would always carry a torch for her, no matter how much he wanted to pretend that he didn't.

"Mark," She murmured, catching him standing at the doorway of the NICU, "Did you come to meet little miss Samantha? She's wide awake and taking visitors."

"I…uh, yeah. I did," He answered, clearing his throat although he knew the lump there wouldn't go away so easily.

Addison moved out of the way so he could take a look at the challenge that belied him. "Her case is pretty severe. She actually reminds me of the case that we did together back in New York-"

"Trevor," Mark answered, looking up at her. "Right out of fellowship. I was so mad at you for getting me dragged into that case."

"But you did a beautiful job and his family was so pleased with the outcome. His father started coming around," Addison spoke softly.

"Thank God. I'll never understand these parents that abandon their children on account of something that can be repaired. Even something that can't be repaired. It's your child, a child. Maybe I'd make a horrible father but-"

"I should have never said that," She interjected, "I should have never told you that you'd be a horrible father, Mark. I was angry and it was stressful and there were so many things going on in my life."

"Don't worry about it," He shrugged off, straightening out and closing the side of the isolette. "You were right not to want a baby with me. I don't blame you."

Addison frowned and reached out to take his hand in hers, "If I had to do it again? If I had to make that decision all over again? I don't think I would do it, knowing what I know now. You are a good man, Mark. I never took you seriously and…and I should have. I was wrong."

The words he was hearing from Addison were almost unbelievable and he searched her eyes, trying to figure out where it was all coming from. His eyes met hers and he could see the longing there. His heart sank in his chest when he realized that it was something that he'd waited forever for from her. Over and over again he'd hoped that Addison would stay, hoped that she'd returned the words that he'd uttered her time and time again and really _mean_ it- and now that she was there? Now that she was on the same page that he had been on, he'd moved onto a new chapter in his life.

She uttered his name softly, looking up at him. The hand that wasn't holding his reached out and she moved the backs of her fingers over his cheek, feeling the bits of stubble that were threatening to emerge just beneath his skin.

No thinking was involved when she stepped closer to him, raised her lips to nearly meet his. If thinking had been involved, she would have remembered that he was still very much involved with Lexie, that they were standing in the middle of the hospital. If she were thinking, she would have realized what it looked like to him, and that she was still 'with' Burke.

Mark's hand reached up to grip her upper arm and no matter how much he didn't want to stop her, he needed to. "I can't," He breathed, his voice low and rough. "Addison, I can't. Lexie-"

Addison pulled away, embarrassed turned around to grab a chart. "I'm sorry. I don't know what-" She stammered and then stopped, unable to find any sort of words to make the moment better. The chart slipped from her fingers and crashed to the floor, papers flying everywhere and she could feel tears pricking the corners of her eyes from the sudden overwhelming feeling of stupidity and rejection and frustration.

He knelt next to her to help her pick the papers up and slide them into the chart. Mark wanted to say something to her but the events were staggering to him. He almost felt blindsided in all of it.

Once all of the papers were gathered and placed firmly back in the chart, the two of them stood. Mark didn't miss the glimmer of tears being held back in her eyes and he frowned. Any other time he would have reached up to push them away, but now it felt wrong.

"Addison," He murmured.

"No, it's fine. Really, I'm fine. It was a long night that's all," She assured him with a forced smile. "I'm just tired."

He nodded, letting her use the lame excuse, "Okay. You're tired."

"That's all it was," Addison tried to promise him.

Mark turned his attention away from her and back to the baby for a moment, "We'll get her into surgery on Monday, Tuesday at the latest. I know that the parents are probably eager for the surgery and she seems as if she can tolerate it. I'll want to hold tube feedings until then. Use TPN for now."

"Of course, I'll write the orders if you have other business to attend to." She offered, finally regaining some semblance of composure.

"If you don't mind."

"Not at all," Addison answered as she tucked the chart under her arm. "Thanks again, Mark. For doing this."

She didn't wait for him to answer as she made a hasty retreat to the nurses' station to sit down and write orders. From behind the desk, she watched as he lingered for a few moments and she tried to read his expression but was failing miserably. As much as she wanted to believe that she really knew Mark, she feared that too much time had passed and things had changed too much.

The fact that he uttered Lexie's name so apologetically whenever he pushed her away hurt even more. It wasn't that she wasn't a good person or a nice girl, but she was just that- a girl. He had given up so much of himself to be with her, had changed so many things to keep up with her.

He almost wasn't Mark anymore and it killed her to see that; especially when she knew now, more than ever before, that it was Mark who she loved and wanted to be with.

x-x-x-x-x

Over and over again, Burke replayed the events of the previous night in his head. Every time his mind reached the moment before Hunt showed up, longing washed over him and he wanted to be back in that moment. Being so close to her again, holding her in his arms- even at a distance, made him feel whole again. He could breathe with her there, he felt alive.

Burke knew that she was his other half, his better half.

He would never stop regretting walking away from that and he would never forgive himself for it. He only hoped that she truly had, that she would give him a chance.

The first thing he did upon arriving at the hospital was make sure that Cristina was there too. When he learned that she was assigned to neuro for the day and already in surgery, he breathed a small sigh of relief. He would find a way to speak to her later, or at least make himself available in the event that she wanted to speak.

Pushing the events of the evening from his mind, his thoughts that had absolutely nothing to do with the chart before him, he tried to turn his attention to what was at hand.

Owen had other plans however. He reached out and closed the chart in front of Burke and moved it out of his reach, "Dr. Burke, a word if you don't mind?"

"Actually, Dr. Hunt," Burke started, but was cut off just as quickly.

"It will only take a minute," He assured him, pushing open the door to the med room. While Owen was understandably upset, he wasn't going to confront him publicly if only for Cristina's sake.

Burke followed him reluctantly and once the door was closed behind him, he stood in front of it to shield unintended guests from joining them. "What can I help you with, Dr. Hunt?"

Owen passed back and forth, something like a caged animal, all of the anger he'd been containing since the previous night threatening to emerge. "You don't deserve her," He finally spoke in a low voice, "You do not deserve her and you know that. You walked away from her."

"If we're going to discuss the topic of who doesn't deserve Cristina, perhaps it would be best if you were to include your name on that list as well," Burke's voice was even, his eyes narrowed on the man.

"You shut the hell up," Owen snapped, "You weren't here; you don't know what you're talking about."

"With all due respect, Dr. Hunt, you don't know what you're talking about either. You had no clue until last night."

"When I came home to find my girlfriend kissing another man."

"Not kissing," Burke argued, raising his hand. "She did not-"

Owen interrupted his argument with an incredulous laugh. He looked at Burke and shook his head in disbelief. Cristina had said the same damn thing to him.

Burke's arms crossed over his chest as he watched the other man, not amused by his hysterics. "Dr. Hunt, if you don't mind-"

"I do mind. Because we were better and you ruined that," Owen said, raising his hand to point at the other man. "It's not real, whatever she thinks she has with you. She's attracted to your skill, to what you have to offer her surgically. That's all it is. Cristina loves _me_. Not my surgeries. Not my name. What does she love about you?"

"Do you love Cristina?" Burke asked in an even voice, "Do you _really_ love her?"

"I love her more than you ever have," Owen answered, stopping to finally look at Burke. "What are you getting at?"

"Because if you love Cristina, if you love her like I do- you'd step back. You'd let her make this decision without pushing her and without saying anything to her."

"You sure as hell looked like you weren't pushing her last night," Owen scoffed, "Not at all."

"I didn't," Burke answered truthfully, "But let's leave the past where it is rather than rehash it. From this moment forward, we let Cristina make the moves. We let her make the choices. We stand back, we stay silent and we wait."

Owen considered the other man's proposition for a moment, his eyes narrowed. If anything, he knew Cristina. He knew that she'd never go back to Burke after what happened before- it obviously still bothered her, otherwise she would have brought it up. He knew that Cristina wouldn't have kissed him of her own volition, wouldn't have tried to patch things up with him on her own. He was confident in their relationship, in the fact that Cristina would choose him and sooner rather than later. "One stipulation," Owen finally spoke.

"And that would be?" Burke asked, his eyebrow arched in curiosity.

"We get a chance to make our final argument to her. We each get a chance to say to her things that need to be said and then we back off." Owen's eyes shone with an intensity and excitement at the prospects of beating Burke properly.

"Fair enough."

A smug grin overtook the angry expression that had dominated the Owen's face, "May the best man win," He finally answered before passing him and leaving Burke standing in the med room alone.

"Trust me," Burke spoke quietly, watching through the glass as Owen walked away. "I will."

x-x-x-x-x

Meredith couldn't help but stare at Cristina as she pushed a grape that had escaped it's bowl around her lunch tray, obviously distracted by whatever it was that was going on in her head. Unable to take the silence anymore, she reached over and stabbed the grape with her own fork, effectively murdering it.

"Okay, I can't take your silent thinky thing anymore. So stop it." Meredith said, exasperated.

Cristina looked back up with uncharacteristically widened eyes and then back down at the squashed grape as if it was somehow important to her. It was important to her because it was distracting her and now it was dead because of Meredith. "I'm not doing anything."

She cast a doubtful glance at Cristina, "Yes you are. You're thinking about something and you're not talking about it. And if you don't talk about it, it drives you crazy and you end up doing things like trying to drown yourself in bathtubs and forgetting how to swim. So, Cristina, tell me what's wrong."

Keeping her eyes fixed to her tray in front of her, Cristina finally mumbled an answer. "I didn't kiss him. I mean, I almost kissed him, but I didn't. But the problem is that he walked up at the most inopportune time which is the reason that I didn't kiss him and now he's all pissed off. And he is giving me those looks like he wants to know what's going on. And I don't know. I don't _know_ and I don't do the whole dating two guys at once thing like you do so I'm totally out of my element here and-"

"Whoa, whoa, I need you to specify the 'he' for me. I would assume that you're referring to Burke and Owen but you didn't kiss who? Owen?"

"Burke," Cristina mumbled, looking up with a guilty expression.

"You almost-" Meredith said, her eyes widening, "Cristina. What are you doing? Are you..why…I…" She couldn't even find any words to question what the hell her friend was thinking. She didn't know what she was supposed to say to her, "Burke. You almost kissed Burke?"

Cristina nodded solemnly, "Owen is angry. Burke is doing the staring thing."

"And what is Cristina doing?" Meredith finally asked her, putting down her fork and watching her friend. She hadn't forgotten Cristina sitting in her hospital room and talking about feeling as if she were a ghost, about saying she'd missed Burke. She also said she didn't miss the relationship or the sex or any of that, but Meredith wondered about the validity of it.

Cristina's relationship with Owen was certainly not a conventional one or an easy one. Meredith knew that Owen loved Cristina, she just wondered sometimes if it was more convenient than anything else.

"I don't know," Cristina sighed, pushing her tray away. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"It's not about what you're supposed to do," Meredith answered, "It's about what you're supposed to do."

Cristina snorted, "Since when are you the authority on relationship? You got married by an office supply."

Meredith ignored the insult with a shrug, "I just know that if I did what I was supposed to every time, I would probably be with Finn and all of his plans and Addison would be with Derek and there would be no office supplies. I would probably be marginally happy in a mediocre way and Derek would be pretending perfection with Addison. I might have messed up relationships but I've had enough of them to know that you're not supposed to let your head interfere with all of the crap. You're supposed to listen to your heart. And I know that even you have one of those, Cristina."

"Everybody has a heart, Meredith. If they didn't, they'd be dead."

"You know what I mean," Her friend said softly, "Just...I know that the listening to your heart thing doesn't appeal to you and that you're not really big on the romance thing or whatever. But don't listen to your head and don't do what you think you're supposed to do. Do what feels right. I don't know who or what feels right and I don't _want_ to know what I'm encouraging. I just want you to be happy."

Letting the words settle in, Cristina wasn't sure that she knew what being happy felt like when it came to relationships. She had experienced minute slivers of it with each man, but she had never truly let herself go with either man. She'd given much more of herself to Owen than she had to Burke, though. She'd stood by him through so much.

It seemed stupid to let go of that.

"You're thinking," Meredith interrupted her train of thought. "Quit thinking about it. Don't even think about it. Just let whatever happen. You'll know."

Cristina's brow scrunched as she looked at Meredith, "Stop it. I don't like you being the rational one."

Meredith giggled, "I'm always the rational one."

"Says the one that tried to drown herself in the bathtub," Cristina muttered, following suit.

As much as she wanted to take Mer's advice and quit thinking about all of it, Cristina didn't know how to _not_ think. She didn't trust instincts to make a decision like this. She certainly didn't want to leave it up to her 'heart'- not that she'd ever given her heart a chance to speak, but she knew what it felt like to have her heart broken.

Out of everything that she didn't know, Cristina knew one thing- and it was that she didn't want to feel that kind of pain again.

x-x-x-x-x

Addison sat next to Burke in the corner of the bar, sipping quietly on her wine and staring out at the crowd. She watched as Lexie teetered on heels far too tall for her next to Meredith and carried on in some tale of woe. Her eyes shifted to Cristina, sitting next to Meredith looking somewhat forlorn herself.

She finally brought her gaze to her friend sitting next to her, his beer untouched. "Preston."

"She was outside last night when I left your apartment," His voice was a low rumble, his eyes glossed over as if he were replaying the moment in his head. "She said that she knew we weren't together except she was upset that I was there because I was never there. Like she doubted herself."

"That's…that's good, right? That she's jealous. I mean, we obviously suck at acting but she was jealous." Addison smiled widely. At least something good was happening for one of them.

"We almost kissed," He finally tore his gaze away from Cristina and looked at her.

Addison's smile faded, "I almost kissed Mark."

Burke couldn't keep surprise from flickering in his eyes, "What? How did that happen?"

"I don't know. It was an incredibly stupid move on my part. I wasn't thinking. We were just talking about a case and we said stuff and I…made a complete and utter idiot out of myself." She muttered, lifting her wine off the table once more.

There wasn't enough wine in the world to numb the pain of recounting her stupid moment with Mark.

"Addison Montgomery admitting that she made an idiot out of herself? I never thought I'd live to see the day," Derek only half teased as he joined the two of them with Mark at his side, "I'm only sorry that I haven't heard the rest of this story."

"Good evening, Derek," Addison said, a hint of venom lacing his name, "Perhaps now that I've done it, you can attempt doing it too."

Derek laughed, waving to Joe for a round, "Never. I'm the perfect man."

Mark smirked, looking at Addison for a fleeting second and then over to Burke, "I heard something interesting from the nurses today."

"What did you hear?" Addison asked on Preston's behalf, more than eager to engage in some mindless gossip to distract her from her own issues.

"That you two aren't really dating," Mark answered, looking back over at Addison. "At all."

The pair glanced at each other and then reached for their drinks in near unison, making their guilt that much more obvious.

"Pity," Derek commented, taking his scotch from Joe, "Here I thought that you'd moved up in the world, Addison."

Addison sat down her drink with a placid expression and smiled sweetly, "Derek, honey, I moved up in the world a _long_ time ago. I thought you already knew."

"Yeah, what's that supposed to mean?" Derek asked with a smug grin that she wanted to knock off of his face.

"Well, you _were_ the one that caught me with Mark."

Mark laughed and Burke winced at her words. It was a long time in coming that put Derek in his place and it was only that much sweeter that it was Addison doing it. Mark reached over and patted his friend on the shoulder with the same smug grin that he had been wearing only moments earlier, "Better luck next time."

Derek jerked his shoulder away, "Laugh all you want, Mark, but I'm not the idiot walking around trying to be twenty years younger for my preschool girlfriend. You look just as ridiculous as she does."

The laughter fell quiet and Mark shifted uncomfortably when he felt their gazes shifted to him. "What?" He asked, playing off the eyes on him. "He's just trying to retaliate for the comment."

Addison cast him a doubtful glance, "Mark, you have to admit it is pretty ridiculous. You're wearing Ed…whoever. Hardy. Ed Hardy cologne and shaving and that Just for Men stuff isn't as subtle as they claim to be."

Addison's words unintentionally soothed Derek's ego and a grin found its way back to Derek's face and he patted Mark on the shoulder in a condescending manner, "You should go with your little mini-Addison. It's past bedtime for you guys, isn't it?"

Mark shrugged off his hand and picked up his drink, "You love somebody, you change for them." He argued, looking at the three of them, "That's how it works."

"No it's not," Burke finally spoke, "It doesn't work like that. You fall in love with a person for who they are. Not for what they could be."

This time the gazes shifted towards him, but he Burke held his steady on Mark. He knew that he didn't have to say anything else, nor did he really have the right to. They weren't friends and they barely qualified as having any form of respect for each other.

Except in this instance, Burke recognized that Mark was what Addison wanted and he wanted his friend to be happy.

The four of them sat in silence over their drinks, words lost on each of them until Derek finally broke the silence. His attention was focused on another corner of the bar rather than at his own table, "Looks like we're not the only ones having a _great_ time tonight." He said sarcastically.

Burke looked towards the corner of the bar where Owen seemed to be arguing with Cristina about something and he set his jaw firmly, watching the two of them. The two men's eyes met and Burke's narrowed when he watched Owen take hold of Cristina's arm to lead her out of the bar.

He felt a sense of relief when she pulled her arm away.

The man stood over her for a moment, defeat causing his posture to sag before he walked away from Cristina and towards the door. He paused for a moment to exchange glances with Burke and the rest of the occupants of his table and went on his way.

"What was that all about?" Derek asked, sliding his glance to Burke, "Were you the cause of that?"

Burke shook his head, reaching for his beer, "How could I have possibly caused that? I've been sitting right here the entire time."

Addison glanced at Burke for a minute and then to Mark. He was watching her again and she caught his glance, held it for a moment and then slid from her barstool. "I really should go home. It's late."

"I think this party was DOA anyway," Derek responded, moving from his seat as well. The two of them left to tab out but Burke remained firmly in his seat, watching Cristina.

Mark sat next to Burke, nursing his beer and his wounded ego from the earlier commentary. His eyes moved from Addison to Lexie and then back to Addison and he finally shook his head, "It isn't fair. To have so many regrets."

"Then don't have regrets," Burke answered, looking at the man.

"How do you not have regrets?" Mark asked, "You're here. You have regrets."

Burke shook his head firmly, "I made mistakes and I'm learning from them."

"Fine. I have a lot of mistakes," Mark said in an annoyed tone. Clearly, his newfound drinking partner had the personality of a cardboard box.

"Then fix them. You've proven that you can carry on in an adult relationship," Burke said, turning back to look at Cristina. "Now apply those same principals with an adult."

"Lexie is-"

"A girl. She's a very sweet, very nice, very naïve girl." Burke interrupted, "As I said before, it's time to apply those principals with an adult, Sloan. It's time to grow up." He stood up and walked away from Mark to pay for his own tab.

Mark watched from the now empty table as Burke exchanged glances with Cristina and nothing more, then disappeared from the bar. He forced a smile as Lexie nearly stumbled towards him in her treacherous heels, reminding him much too much of a child wearing her mother's high heels. He knew what he had to do, what he _wanted_ to do.

In his lifetime, Mark had broken it off with a million women.

There were just never feelings involved before.


	8. Chapter 8

"I get that there's this big financial crisis and all," Cristina mused from the bench as she lay, staring at the ceiling, "But you would think that they'd consider just replacing the ceiling tiles every once in a while."

"Still avoiding the Burke thing, I see. The Burke-Owen thing. Maybe you can date them both like I dated Finn and Derek. You see how well that worked out," Meredith rambled, flipping through a journal.

"I'm not avoiding anything," Cristina answered, draping an arm over her eyes. "I don't care. It's whatever."

"It's more than whatever and you do care," Meredith corrected her, lowering the journal. "Flip a coin," She suggested, turning Cristina's own words from so long ago against her.

Cristina raised her arm long enough to sneer at the other woman, "Shut up."

Being in the position of having two men actively, or not so actively, pursuing her was not something she was used to. Once upon a time, Cristina used to think that she'd be mildly amused at it but nothing was amusing about it. Owen was constantly calling her and cornering her in the hallway. Burke was always giving her that look across the OR table and not saying a damn thing.

If anything, Cristina was annoyed by the entire situation more than she was turned on.

"I think I'm going to become a lesbian," She finally announced, sitting up. "That's my decision. I'm a lesbian."

Meredith giggled at her friend. It was kind of fun to see the tables turned for a change. Though Meredith didn't have a strong opinion of which man she'd rather see stay in Cristina's life, Meredith did know that she had a very long and very strict list of rules that the winner would receive.

Cristina didn't deserve to be hurt again. Meredith was a firm believer in happy endings now and if anything, dammit, Cristina deserved hers.

She needed hers.

"Cristina," Meredith finally sighed. She wanted to give her an answer but there really wasn't anything to give. Meredith knew from experience that it was a decision she'd have to make on her own. "We could go to Joe's tonight. I'll buy."

"Yeah," Cristina mumbled, standing up. "Okay. I gotta go. I have a surgery so Burke can sit there and give me pathetic glances while we play in an open chest cavity."

She was mocking it but there may have been just the slightest sadistic part of her that enjoyed torturing him.

Though she'd never admit it, waiting for him to make some sort of move may have been just a little more torturous.

"Ooh, I may have to go to the gallery for that. It's too bad there isn't some sort of massive trauma where all three of you are in the OR at the same time. I'd sell tickets." Meredith grinned.

Cristina glared at the woman before jerking open the door to the locker room, "I hate you."

"You love me," Meredith answered with a wrinkled nose and another chuckle.

As Cristina left the locker room, she passed a red faced Lexie dressed in a pair of sneakers and wearing a sweatshirt and jeans. She paused for a moment and watched as she disappeared behind the door. For only a moment Cristina speculated on exactly what that meant and decided not even a beat later that she knew.

Burke and Addison had scored their first point in the game.

x-x-x-x-x

Somehow throughout the night, Addison's little fighter had lost some of her fight. She crouched next to the baby's isolette and gently ran a fingertip over her tiny arm. "Come on, Samantha," She murmured softly. "Do this for me. I need something good to come out of being here and it might as well be something that's good for everybody. Not just for me."

Addison pulled away for only a moment to pull a chair next to the isolette. Peering into the four plastic walls she watched as the little girl worked just a little bit harder to take her breaths. "I think I'd rather it be good for you," Addison finally spoke again, "You deserve good. I thought I deserved good too but I think I've done something really bad. Maybe I don't deserve good. Maybe my good is making good for you. Maybe I'm pathetic for talking to a premature infant because the only other person I have to talk to is in surgery ogling his could-be girlfriend right now."

A laugh disrupted her and Addison jerked her head up, hitting the corner of her head on the isolette. She cursed, her hand flying to her forehead and she glanced up to see Mark standing behind her. "Don't _scare_ me like that!" She hissed, quickly glancing back down at Samantha to make sure that she wasn't too startled.

At least she seemed no worse for the wear.

With a slight groan she felt something slick beneath the fingers on her forehead. "Perfect," She muttered, "Just perfect."

Mark stepped forward, grasping her wrist to move her hand. "Here, let me take a look at it."

Blue eyes stung with frustration and she wondered for a minute if she would actually cry. It was just another thing that could go wrong. She couldn't _see_ the gash on her forehead and she had no way of knowing how big it was, it could have been an inch long at that point and it would have been enough to cause her to crumble right there.

She just wanted something good to come out of being here.

"It's deep," Mark murmured in a voice that stirred her insides, "Come on. I'll stitch it up. You don't need an intern jacking your face up."

"It's fine, Mark," Addison half-contested, "I can find someone-"

Mark nearly pulled her out of the seat, grasping her upper arm firmly. "I'll stitch it up," He repeated, leading her from the NICU.

Addison felt like the kid who had their hand caught in the candy jar. Here she was bleeding all over her fingers and her scrubs, on the verge of tears and wondering exactly how much of what she had confided in her patient was divulged to him as well.

It was probably a good thing that Preston was in surgery right now because he would think she was crazy if she could talk to him.

Maybe she was crazy.

Mark led her into an exam room and finally released his hold on her arm. He walked over to the counter and shuffled through the suture kits until he found the finest possible suture material he could. There was so much to be said but he didn't know how to say it.

It's not like Burke was his friend. He could have been giving Mark the wrong advice out of pure spite and he could have made a huge mistake. He could make another huge mistake.

Everything was so damn complicated when it came to Addison.

With supplies in hand, he returned to her side. Quietly, he pulled on a pair of gloves and proceeded to clean the deep gash with the lightest possible touch. "How's Samantha?" He asked quietly, unsure of what else to say at this point.

"Tiring out. She's worked so hard for the past few days that it's starting to get to her," Addison couldn't help but see the dual meaning in her words.

"It's a long road," Mark answered, "She may need a break but she's strong. She can handle anything."

Addison felt the tears that were threatening start to sting more. She couldn't handle anything and even if she was pretending that she knew what she was doing in Seattle, she didn't have a damn clue. Her fucked up life in Los Angeles was better than this. Chasing off little preschool children from men that she never gave a chance to and giving love advice to a man who dumped his girlfriend in a church.

She couldn't figure out what the hell she was thinking.

Mark could see her fighting back the tears and he cleared his throat, "It's deep," he mumbled as he carefully went about suturing the damage he had caused, "But it won't leave a scar."

"Promise?" Addison asked weakly.

"I promise."

The two sat in silence as Mark worked. From time to time, Addison's eyes would wander upwards to his face and she'd study his expression as if it would somehow tell her what he was thinking. The only thing that she could see was that he was working. He was trying to fix her damn face and that the things that were running through her mind were not the same as the things in his.

She wanted to declare herself a lost cause now.

When he finished, Mark dabbed gently at the site with gauze to remove any remaining blood. He ran his fingers through her hair for a moment, gently guided the sweep of her bangs over the evidence. His fingers continued down over her cheek and beneath her jaw and he tipped her head upward only slightly.

Once upon a time he had tried to kiss her and she slapped him.

He wondered now if she would do the same.

Addison took in a deep breath and then paused, her brow furrowing. "Armani," She said curiously.

"What?" Mark asked, standing up as if he wasn't trying to make a move on her only two seconds ago.

"You're wearing Armani. Your cologne," Addison repeated herself, searching his face.

Mark nodded slightly, hoping that she'd see some sort of significance in that, "That other stuff was cheap." Mark's pride would never tolerate him admitting that he was too hold for it, something that he'd known for a little while.

"Yeah," she agreed in a soft tone. Reaching out, she took his hand in hers. Addison smiled sadly, her fingertips tracing against the curve of his knuckle. "I missed the Armani."

"I missed you," He admitted in a low voice before he brought his lips down on hers in a fierce kiss. There was no waiting to see if she responded, no thinking about it. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her body closer to his.

Addison's lips moved desperately against his and her arms wrapped around his neck. She was already dizzy from the lack of oxygen but didn't care enough to pull away from him. It was what she had wanted, what she had desperately needed.

Mark was unsuspectingly overwhelmed by a mix of emotions and he pulled his lips a mere inch from hers. There was a staggering difference between Addison and Lexie and it took him by surprise. He had cared for Lexie, he had loved her even; Mark simply knew that she would never be Addison.

He pulled away from Addison and went about cleaning up the mess he had made, "I'm sorry-" He finally spoke, somewhat embarrassed by his reaction.

"No," Addison said, withholding a sigh. "It's fine. I get it."

"No, you don't. And it's not fine," Mark half-snapped back at her. "I just broke up with her. And…Lexie, she was-" He found himself at a loss for words, "Addison, it's not that I don't want this. But I need time."

"If you need time maybe you didn't make the right decision, Mark."

Mark looked down at her and he knew that he hadn't. He just didn't know how to explain it to her, he didn't know how to put into words that Lexie was the first serious relationship that he'd been in. Maybe he was afraid of sounding pathetic.

A man of his age should have had more serious relationships.

"I just need time," He repeated before leaving her alone in the exam room.

Addison looked wistfully at the door, trying to figure out what exactly had just happened. She glanced at the clock, knowing that Preston would still be in surgery and she sighed.

She hated waiting.

x-x-x-x-x

Burke had intentions to talk to Cristina after their surgery. He had it all laid out in his head, as a matter of fact. He was going to offer to buy her a cup of coffee and it would take a little bit of persuasion but she would accept. They would talk, he would explain himself and they would leave separately on the understanding that he would do pretty much anything to get her back.

While he had an agreement with Hunt that they'd each only talk to her once, Hunt had spoken with her multiple times and Burke hadn't had a single opportunity to really say anything to her.

His intentions were shot, however, when their patient went south and Cristina disappeared to the CVICU to get them settled and stabilized. Hours later he was still searching the hospital for her, even as he was on his way out the door.

All he needed was his one chance.

After an extensive search of the second and first floors Burke gave up and headed towards Joe's to meet Addison.

Moments later he found himself wishing that he had stayed inside just a few minutes longer. Upon stepping out into the chilly Seattle air, he heard a familiar voice and turned his head in the direction of the parking lot. Cristina was with Hunt, standing next to a pickup truck one second and the next they were kissing.

An ache settled deep in his chest as he watched the two of them for a moment that lasted way too long and then he looked away.

Apparently he wouldn't be getting his chance.

He continued onto Joe's trying not to replay the image in his head but he couldn't help it. The image of her kissing the other man had imprinted itself in the forefront of his mind and he didn't imagine it would dissipate anytime soon.

She hadn't even given him a chance.

Burke didn't feel that he necessarily deserved the chance. He had been the one to leave her, to never listen to her. He had made so many mistakes but he wanted that opportunity to make it right. He never saw himself not having the opportunity to fix things.

He had never imagined failing.

With sagging shoulders he walked into the familiar bar and joined Addison at their normal table. Rather than the usual beer, he ordered bourbon instead and then looked anywhere but at Addison. He could feel her questioning glance on him and he didn't really feel like explaining.

Sensing the sense of defeat oozing from Preston's pores, Addison reached for her wine. "We're bad people," she spoke quietly, "We are very bad, no good, horrible people. We screwed things up for ourselves and we come back and break up relationships and hurt other people involved for our own selfish reasons."

"Who said we were breaking up relationships?" Burke asked idly, waiting for his drink to return.

Her voice was hollow yet strangely hopeful when she answered, "I broke up a relationship."

With a raised eyebrow he looked over at Addison and then in the direction she nodded towards. A very drunk Lexie Grey sat just a few feet away, her head resting against the bar. She seemed to be mumbling something and Meredith was sitting next to her consuming her fair share of alcohol.

"Sloan broke up with Grey," He mumbled to himself. "And we're not bad people."

Addison sighed heavily and glanced over at him, "He kissed me. Mark….kissed me. And then he said he needed time. Why the hell do you guys do that? Why do you kiss someone and then say 'oh, by the way, I'm not ready yet'? What's the point?"

"Don't peg that on me," Burke chuckled slightly, holding his hands up. "I am not responsible for whatever it is that Sloan is doing."

"I think he's trying to get over her," Addison grumbled, "He has to get over her."

"Well, he was in a real relationship for a change," Burke offered. "It's a possibility that he does need a couple days to get over it."

Addison looked at him with the smallest smile playing on her lips, "See. You men."

Burke shrugged it off and reached for his bourbon. He was not like most men and he would never understand what Cristina saw in Hunt over him. He would never understand what men like Sloan saw in little girls over Addison.

"You're quiet," Addison observed, trying to draw whatever it was that was bothering him out.

"Yes," Burke answered idly before taking a long drink. It burned all the way down, a physical distraction from what he saw earlier.

"Is it Cristina?"

He glanced over at Addison and then back down into his drink, "She was kissing Hunt. Just before I got here."

"What?" Addison asked, surprised by his admission, "Are you sure it was her?" She knew it was a dumb question but it didn't make much sense to her. She knew that Hunt had nearly been stalking her since the truth had come out.

"It was Cristina," He answered quietly. "Cristina made her choice and I have to deal with that."

Addison could see the sadness in his eyes, hear it in his voice. She wished for words to make it better but nothing seemed to come. Instead she waved to Joe for another round of drinks for the both of them and they sat in silence.

A few minutes later, Cristina entered the bar and paused when she saw Burke sitting with Addison. She offered a forced smile to Addison and glanced at Burke, lingering for a minute before she proceeded to join Meredith and Lexie.

The gesture wasn't lost on Addison.

"What was that all about?"

Burke looked at her, "What was what all about? What are you talking about?"

"Didn't you see how she looked at you?"Addison spoke, looking back at Cristina, "She was definitely looking at you."

"She's allowed to look. She's probably wondering if I'll leave now." He answered, glancing up at her for only a brief moment. "Perhaps I should."

"No," Addison answered immediately. "No, Preston. You don't get to leave just because of a little setback. It's not set in stone. You don't even know if what you saw was really what you saw."

"It was what I saw," Burke answered in a firm voice, "And I'll do what she wants me to."

"How do you know what she wants you to do? You haven't even talked to her."

Wordlessly, he finished his drink and pushed it aside. He pulled some money from his wallet and laid it on the table before standing, "Not tonight."

"Tomorrow then," Addison suggested. "You shouldn't wait long."

"Perhaps," Burke answered vaguely, "Nonetheless, it's been a long day and it will be more of the same tomorrow."

"Coffee tomorrow morning?" Addison suggested, letting him make his escape for now.

"The same time as always," He affirmed before leaving her at the table after a mumbled goodnight.

Addison looked at Cristina from across the bar, contemplating speaking to the woman herself but she had faith that if Burke didn't say something soon that Cristina would do it herself. Her eyes moved over to Lexie, the tears that were in her eyes long gone and a smile threatening to break her sullen expression.

Perhaps their motives had been a little bit selfish but Addison couldn't help but hope that the changes would be for the better in the long run. No matter what feelings may have belied the former couple, Lexie was young and it wouldn't have ever lasted. She deserved a chance to be young and enjoy that youth before tying herself down to one man.

Addison had learned that lesson with Derek.

Lexie caught her eye and rather than glaring at her or breaking into tears, she offered the faintest of smiles and turned back to her friends.

Smiling to herself, Addison laid down a tip in addition to the coverage that Burke had left for the tab and walked out of Joe's alone. She hoped that if she waited it out that it would be one of the last times that she'd ever have to leave alone.

All she had to do was wait.


	9. Chapter 9

Cristina's eyes fixated on the small bit of purple peeking out from underneath Addison's scrubcap and try as she might, she couldn't look away. Her eyes narrowed a little at the oddly discolored bruise and realized that there had to be some sort of makeup on it in order to achieve such an unnatural color. She opened her mouth to ask what happened and then closed it again, still studying the bit of suturing she saw.

Though she didn't know for sure, she preferred to think it was Sloan's work. Burke could suture a million times better than Sloan in her opinion, not that she was at all biased, but she didn't care to think about Burke being that close to Addison.

She'd already seen it once. That was enough.

"It's a laceration, Dr. Yang. I trust you've seen one or two of those in your medical career," Addison finally remarked, annoyed with the young woman's eyes glued to her forehead.

"From _what_?" Cristina blurted out and then pressed her lips together, "Sorry."

"It's a laceration," Addison repeated, "Let's move on. Tell me the most common complications of cleft palate."

"Difficulty feeding, ear infections, hearing problems secondary to ear infections, speech defects, dental problems including cavities, missing, malformed and/or extra teeth," Cristina prattled off until Addison held up her hand.

"Thank _you_, Dr. Yang. Now tell me what we're going to do about it."

Cristina looked down at the baby to avoid staring at the gash on Addison's forehead while rattling off her information, "Dr. Sloan will go in and most likely use the the Von Langenbeck repair. Two bipedicle mucoperiosteal flaps are created by incising along the oral side of the cleft edges and along the posterior alveolar ridge from the maxillary tuberosities to the anterior level of the cleft. The flaps are then mobilized medially with preservation of the greater palatine arteries and closed in layers. The hamulus may need to be fractured to ease the closure."

Addison's expression didn't reflect an iota at the amazement she had at how thoroughly prepared Cristina was. She had only pulled her onto the case as a favor to Preston. "And why can't this be done now?"

"The patient has developed a slight fever and respiratory difficult requiring intubation. With an abnormally small airway, the option for surgery is limited unless we perform a tracheotomy which the parents have elected against."

"So?"

"So we wait. And hope that she gets better. IV antibiotics were started overnight and the central line was replaced with the tip of the previous catheter sent for culture just in case," Cristina finally looked back up at Addison, glancing at her forehead this time for only a moment.

"Wait- the central line was reinserted? Who wrote those orders?" Addison asked, flipping through the chart.

"I did," Cristina answered, her voice wavering. She had forgotten who she was working with.

Addison wasn't quite so quick to deal with residents doing her job; she'd be happy doing everything herself so long as it wasn't labs or menial work.

Cristina continued before Addison had an opportunity to speak, "Every minute counts. If it was a bloodstream infection secondary to poor utilization of asepsis during central line insertion, we'd find that in the culture and since results take so long I thought it was best to get the process started."

With a slow nod, Addison closed the chart and looked up at her, "Very good, Dr. Yang. Good call." Her tone betrayed her annoyance. As much as she wanted to be angry with the doctor for overstepping her boundaries on the case, she knew that in this instance only, she was right. "We'll do labs in the morning. Continue the same parameters on the ventilator and write orders to continue the same parenteral nutrition."

After making a few notes, Cristina slipped her pen back into her pocket and glanced at her patient list. It was relatively short. Enough so that it caused her to question what she was doing with Addison in the first place. "Why did you pull me from cardio?"

Addison glanced up, guilt already oozing from her expression, "Pardon me?"

"You pulled me from cardio for three patients. There are no surgeries on the schedule and no inductions. Cardio has a list eight times this long and I'm the most capable resident for that kind of load. Why did you pull me from cardio?" Cristina said, keeping her eyes fixed on Addison's.

"Because I needed you on this," Addison spoke, reaching her hand out to lean on a small desk but missing and nearly slipping. She stood up and tried to straighten herself out casually, "I wasn't aware that it was in your position to question your assignment, Dr. Yang."

"It's not," Cristina answered warily, "But I'm also not an idiot and I know that you and Burke are up to something. Or that you were. I went from being on his service non-stop and spending 16 hours a day here with him to all of the sudden being moved off of his service for three non-surgical patients?"

"Samantha _is_ surgical," Addison contended on behalf of her smallest patient, "She _is _surgical and she _will_ get better."

"That's not the point. The point is," Cristina started to argue but was quickly interrupted.

"Preston asked me to. I don't know why. He just said-"

"You know exactly why he asked you to pull me."

Addison glanced around and she sighed softly. She was always horrible at lying. Maybe once or twice she had secretly hoped to be better at lying but then again, what kind of person hopes to be a better liar. "He saw you….with Dr. Hunt in the parking lot. Clearly, you'd made your choice and he's trying to give you space until he can find another position in Seattle."

"He's _what_?" Cristina hissed, perhaps a little too loudly and she glanced around. "He's leaving?" She left out the word again, masking her bitterness.

"He thought it would be the best thing to do. For both of you," Addison further explained, "Preston had hoped it would be easier for you."

Cristina crossed her arms and looked down at the ground, withholding a response. Of course he did. Because he never bothered to ask what she wanted, never even bothered to try and talk to her.

Once again, he had just assumed.

"When?" Cristina finally asked, her voice less firm than she wanted it to be.

"Within a couple of weeks, I would assume. Unless," Addison paused for a second, studying her. "Unless there's a reason he shouldn't?"

Cristina looked up at Addison and straightened herself out. Whatever flicker of emotion or disappointment that had been there was long gone now, "Why would there be a reason that he shouldn't? It sounds to me like he's already made his decision."

"Cristina," Addison said, sensing the underlying emotion in the response.

"I have patients to round on," Cristina muttered, turning away, "All two of them."

Before Addison could say another thing, Cristina was gone. While her first instinct was to run to Preston and tell him exactly what had transpired, she had a feeling that she didn't need to. Cristina Yang was a big girl and she could stick up for herself.

In this particular case, she wondered if perhaps she should be more worried for Preston instead.

x-x-x-x-x

It wasn't in Mark Sloan's nature to sulk. It wasn't in his nature to feel guilt when he dumped women and it definitely wasn't in his nature to be worried about whether or not one of the notches in his bedpost was doing 'okay'.

Lexie had been more than a notch in his bedpost though. He had really loved her. She wasn't the first woman he loved, that title would always belong to Addison. Lexie was however, his first steady and stable relationship.

Maybe he wasn't so upset about letting her go so much as he was ending that. Maybe his bigger concern was whether or not he'd be able to do it again.

As much as he wanted to pretend it was the latter, he knew that it was a little bit of both. Mark was still worried about Lexie but he still very much wanted to be with Addison at the same time.

This was why he didn't do the whole commitment thing.

Starting at a very young age, Mark had taken to the notion that he could have his cake and eat it too. Commitment was for ugly people with limited options and he was most definitely not homely. Options would throw themselves at him on a nightly basis and he enjoyed every last one of them with the same enthusiasm that he had the other options from the night before.

The only problem was that Addison fell out of that category somehow.

Mark had seen her first, standing at the bar next to a bunch of sorority sisters and sipping on some fruity looking drink. She was beautiful and funny, attractive and witty. Addison was a girl that he would have settled down for in an instant.

Even now, he remembered the smug grin on Derek's face and the incredulous tone whenever Mark said that he was going to date her- _Don't bother. She has an IQ above 70 which puts her out of your league_, Derek had said.

Mark was determined to prove him wrong.

He floundered badly when the first question from Addison's mouth was 'Who's your friend?' and he had to sit in silence and suffer Derek's superiority complex for an evening. Eventually, he got used to seeing the girl of his dreams with Derek. They had become quite the trio during med school, even. Best friends.

It didn't stop Mark from wishing that Addison would come to her senses and dump Derek on his ass for him instead.

Mark stood by and watched as Derek lived the life that he wanted. He continued with the endless stream of women through his bed, took the harassment from Addison who had fondly nicknamed him her little manwhore as a joke and pretended not to care that it wasn't him.

Commitment was for ugly people with limited options.

Except when he saw how badly that Addison was hurting, he comforted her the only way that he knew how, the only way that he knew how to comfort himself. Addison was a divine and forbidden fruit that he couldn't get enough of. He took her pain away, if only for a couple of hours at a time and numbed her to what her life had become with Derek.

Addison had _always_ deserved better than Derek and he knew it.

When Derek left, Mark had a chance to prove himself. After years of waiting, Addison was with him and they _loved_ each other. Except Mark's definition of love was a little blurry at the time and it led to a couple of mistakes.

Or three.

It wasn't that he didn't want to do commitment at that point, he just didn't know how. She was stressed out and sex wasn't helping anymore and Derek was gone and his method of comfort wasn't working. He wasn't sure what to do. She required talking and emotion and all of the things he'd never done. Mark knew he wasn't enough.

So he sought comfort in somebody else.

Thinking about it now, he couldn't help but flinch at the many regrets that riddled him with the past. If he could have just gotten it together for Addison then, he wouldn't be going through this now. He wouldn't be standing here, feeling guilty over hurting one woman just so he could be with another.

The opportunity was there for the taking; he had this chance to prove himself to Addison.

But he was worried about Lexie.

He cursed under his breath and pulled his shirt on. At the very least, he needed to give himself a couple of days, no matter how badly he wanted to go to Addison. Mark needed to clear his head and make sure that he could focus solely on her and nobody else.

Mark had made the mistake of letting his mind wander to other women in the past.

He wasn't about to do it again.

x-x-x-x-x

After a dreadfully slow day, Addison felt as if she were dragging down the hall. It wasn't the kind of dragging that came after an incredibly busy day and 14 hours on her feet. It was the kind of dragging that only came from maybe one too many pastries from the cafeteria and an ten ounces too much of that delightful peppermint mocha that the coffee stand was selling.

It was the kind of dragging that would make her pants tight in the morning.

She spotted Burke standing at the nurses' station and she leaned over the counter next to him. "Do you have any idea how good the apple fritters are down in the cafeteria? They didn't have those the last time we were here."

Burke tried to force a smile but he couldn't.

Not today.

Addison looked up at him with a frown, "What's wrong?"

"Oh nothing," He answered, closing a chart and pushing it away. "It's just been a long day and it looks to be a longer night. I have three extremely critical patients."

"Who's your resident?" Addison asked out of curiosity.

"Karev. I already excused him for the evening, something about Stevens having an IL-2 treatment tomorrow. I wasn't aware that she had cancer."

"Yeah," Addison answered softly, "Melanoma."

"Scary," Burke commented in an equally soft voice.

"Yeah."

The two stood in silence for a moment and Burke let out a heavy sigh, reaching for another chart. He wanted to ask how Cristina was doing or if she had made any indications of anything to Addison while working with her but he knew better.

Cristina wasn't like that.

Instead, he bit back his question and continued writing orders. He could feel Addison's eyes on him but he offered no explanation as to what was going on in his head or what he was going to do. Even if in the smallest form, right now she had hope and he wasn't going to reduce that with his own problems.

Addison placed her hand over his to stop him from writing and he glanced down at her, "Are you sure you want to leave?" She asked him, "You don't know what's going on. You could still have a chance. Maybe you could just wait for them to-"

"I want what's best for Cristina," He answered with an assured tone, "I want what Cristina wants-"

"What does Cristina want?"

Despite her best efforts, Addison couldn't keep a small smile from creeping over her lips when she glanced over her shoulder to see Cristina standing behind the two of them. She pulled her hand from atop Burke's and silently bid him a goodnight before disappearing down the darkened hallway.

It had crossed her mind for only a few moments to stay and bear witness to whatever it was that Cristina had to say but she was almost sure that Preston would tell her.

Or she thought he would.

She hoped.

Once she was sure that Addison was gone, Cristina walked up to the counter. She left a safe distance between herself and Burke and she fixed her eyes on the chart rack a few feet away.

"This thing that you do, with the whole doing what's best for me and what you think I want," Cristina started, anger lacing her tone, "It's not going to work. You can't just pretend to know what I want and then act on it. You have to talk and ask questions. You can't justassume things when you have no clue."

Burke nodded wordlessly, trying to understand what was going on. He wanted to believe it was because she wanted him to stay even if she was with Hunt but he didn't want to make assumptions, especially when she was standing before him and telling him not to.

Surprised by his silence, Cristina continued. "And you have to wait for me. You can't just tell me to take steps. I walk. Maybe it's not fast enough for you, maybe you want to run but I can't run. I suck at running. So you're going to have to slow down. Or maybe we can jog or something."

A slight chuckle escaped Burke's lips but he was still confused, "I can jog. But I thought you were with Hunt? I saw you in the parking lot-"

"Yeah, I know. You think you're the only guy who has randomly kissed me in order to prove something?" Cristina answered, slightly annoyed.

A sudden wave of relief washed over Burke and he smiled, "So-"

"So," Cristina echoed, her fingertip tracing against the countertop, "You realize that you have a _lot_ of making up to do, right? That I'm not going easy on you. You messed up big time."

"I know," Burke answered sincerely.

"And you know that there's no way in hell that it's going to go back to what it was. Not anytime soon. I can't-"

"You can't run," He finished for her. "We'll jog. We can walk. I'll crawl. I'll do what you need me to."

Burke would do anything for her, anything to make it up to her.

"And I want back on your service tomorrow. If I hear another round of Hush Little Baby, somebody will have to commit me, seriously." Cristina added, taking advantage of the situation to get off of Addison's case. She figured she'd have about three or four weeks of getting her way at work until he figured out what she was up to.

After a few seconds, she decided that maybe she'd just save it for outside of work. There were other things she could use him for. Dinner and stuff since Owen couldn't cook to save his life.

"I have three critical patients that need surgery," Burke remarked idly, "I was going to wait until morning to try to work them into the OR but if you don't have anything to do-"

"Do you need fresh labs?" She interrupted, "I'll call ahead and have the nurses get consent. Which patient do you want first? What is it so I can notify the OR?"

Withholding a chuckle, Burke passed the information onto her. He took pleasure at seeing the sparkle of excitement in her eye at the prospect of an all-nighter in surgery. She hadn't changed a bit and he was thankful for that.

He only hoped that he would be able to show her how much he appreciated who she was. He would do his best to erase the words that he uttered to her on their would be wedding day.

Burke knew that that they would haunt _him_ forever even if she never thought of them again.

Cristina paused for a minute before walking away from him. She looked as if she wanted to do or say something but then another expression overtook her face and just as quickly, she left his side.

Whatever it was, Burke was sure that he'd find out later. Whether later meant a few hours or a few weeks, he didn't care.

He would wait as long as he needed to.

x-x-x-x-x

Addison stirred her drink idly, staring at the crowd of people. She really wasn't sure as to what she was doing at Joe's as there was no way that she'd be meeting Preston there. Derek had forgone the dive with the excuse of an early surgery, Callie was on a date and she was left alone.

Again.

It was funny how a nightly visit to Joe's had become habit. It was funny how being surrounded by friends every night before she went home to an empty apartment was something that she'd come to depend upon. Addison used to believe that she preferred a quiet house; she'd forced herself into believing it after a million lonely nights while still married to Derek.

Now she loathed it.

Just as she was getting ready to call it a night she felt a strong hand against the small of her back. Startled, she turned to find Mark next to her and she opened her mouth to speak but then closed it. She knew it certainly hadn't been long enough for him to ease his mind about whatever he'd done.

"Is this seat taken?" He asked in a deep voice that sent shivers down her spine.

"Not at all," Addison answered, waving to Joe for another drink rather than her tab.

Mark sat down next to her, his eyes focused straight ahead. He cleared his throat and thanked Joe in a quiet voice when a beer was set in front of him. "Busy day?"

"No," Addison scoffed, "I need patients. But it always seems to slow down this time of year. Right until New Years and then it picks up again."

"Same here. Implants are the best Christmas present a woman could ever ask for. And nose jobs," He quipped with a small smile. "Remember that year that I tried-"

"Yes. And I'll never forgive you for it. Mine are perfect," Addison said, glancing down.

"Yes they are," Mark answered with a devilish grin.

A bemused grin settled upon Addison's lips and she lifted her wine glass, "You haven't changed a bit."

"I've changed a lot," Mark said, his tone suddenly more serious than it had been a few moments earlier. He needed her to know how much he changed, that he wasn't the same guy.

"Well, I know _that_- I just meant…I mean..you know what I mean," Addison stumbled over her words for a moment, feeling her cheeks warm. "Honestly Mark? You could have done it before. I know you could have. It was me. It was my fault. Not yours."

His eyes moved up to meet hers and his brow furrowed, "What?"

"It was me," She repeated softly, "You went sixty days for me. Almost sixty days. I was the one doubting and lamenting and it was stupid. I had all of these ideas about what I wanted and didn't want and I was so busy wrapped up in all of that, so obsessed with everything I didn't have that I didn't see what was right in front of me." Her voice faded towards the end and she looked back down to her drink.

Mark sat quietly for a long moment, sipping his beer and contemplating her words before he finally spoke. "We both made mistakes. It wasn't just you. It was me too. I should have fought harder. I should have stepped up long before I did."

"It just wasn't meant to be," Addison murmured, "Then. It wasn't meant to be then."

"And now?" Mark asked, looking at her.

Addison's eyes searched his and she reached out to stroke his cheek with the backs of her fingers, "You know what I want. When you're ready."

Moving his hand up, he covered hers and then turned his head to kiss her hand softly before lowering it from her face. "It's been a while since I've been alone," He commented quietly.

"It's not something that you ever get used to."

"You won't have to," He promised her before turning back to his drink.

Addison got just the right amount of reassurance that she needed from those four words. Spending the night alone tonight didn't seem like such a hassle anymore, nor would spending the night alone any other night.

Loneliness wasn't so daunting when she knew that there was an end in sight, when she knew that after just a few more nights alone that she would never be cold again.

After all of the trouble that she'd been through to get back into this position, to be at a point to where she could have Mark back in her life, Addison knew that she would work harder than ever before to keep him there.

They would both work for it.

This time, nothing would stop them from succeeding.


	10. Chapter 10

Addison watched with amusement as Burke stepped out of a call room that she happened to know was occupied. She approached her friend with crossed arms and a knowing smirk on her lips, "Don't tell me you were doing what I know you were doing in that room."

"What you think I was doing," Burke corrected her without missing a beat.

A small laugh escaped Addison's lips and she shook her head, "Think. _Right._ I happen to know that you weren't the only one in that call room."

"Perhaps, but I can promise there was only one person in the bed."

"You and I both know that there's no bed required," She countered, mischief flashing in her blue eyes.

A grin broke out on Burke's face and he shrugged.

"Whatever happened to taking it slow?" Addison asked, nudging his arm gently. "That, most definitely, is not slow."

"We could have been talking," He answered pointedly, pulling his patient list from his pocket. Though he'd rather be sleeping, he had too many patients waiting to see him to get any decent amount of rest right now.

"Cristina doesn't talk," Addison smirked, checking over her own list. "I have patients to see. Lunch later?"

Burke nodded, "I think so. I'll text."

Addison walked away, just as amused as she had been when he came out of the call room.

She couldn't remember having the last time that she was this content, the last time that she had smiled this much in the span of a week let alone just a few minutes.

Life was good again.

x-x-x-x-x

Lexie sat in the NICU, chewing on her lip and looking over a flowsheet with vital signs on it. While she could remember every aspect of medical school that she'd been through and all of the important things about caring for critically ill infants today, she was having a difficult time applying it.

Perhaps it's because she knew that she'd have to spend all day with the impossibly perfect woman that Mark had fallen in love with.

Again.

It wasn't really so much that Lexie had a problem with Addison. It wasn't that she was hurt or on the verge of tears or anything like that. Lexie just didn't want to have to work next to her. Or acknowledge her existence.

She needed to though.

There were things that she needed to say to the impossibly perfect woman that she didn't want to acknowledge, things that she needed to make sure that Addison knew. She had signed herself up for the service, had gone through what she wanted to say in her head multiple times.

Lexie was still terrified that she wouldn't be able to get it all out.

A shallow breath left her chest as she looked over her small patient, no longer battling for life on a ventilator but just barely stable at the same time. The slightest frown traced her lips watching the baby and she thought to herself how life shouldn't ever start out that way, how many hard things would belie the baby before her and how unfair it was that the hard stuff came now.

A moment later, her frown turned into the faintest of smiles when she knew that these circumstances would make her a fighter and that if she could beat this that she'd be able to beat anything.

Addison walked slowly across the room, thankful to be wearing her sneakers for surgery so as not to announce her presence before she was ready to. She had been surprised to see L. Grey on her assignment sheet and had even questioned if it was a mistake. When she found out that the youngest Grey had assigned herself to Addison's service, she gained a newfound respect for Lexie.

She had expected her to do everything possible to avoid getting onto her service, not sign up for it.

"Dr. Grey," Addison mumbled in a greeting. "How's Samantha doing today?"

Lexie didn't bother to glance up from the warmer, "Vitals are holding and have been for the past thirty-six hours. The ventilator is still moderately supporting her but not as much as it was initially. She's gotten stronger as her white count has decreased. If she continues to trend this way, she could be ready for surgery soon."

Relief was visible on Addison's face, "Good. That's good to hear. Samantha has kept us particularly busy for the past couple of weeks."

"I know," Lexie answered shortly. "I-I read over her chart. Dr. Sloan was going to do a repair of her cleft palate before she declined."

"Yes," Addison answered simply, watching the woman closely. It was surprising to her that Lexie had brought him up first. "Dr. Grey, Lexie-"

"No. I want to speak first," Lexie interrupted her, finally looking up. Her eyes were already lined with tears but she refused to let them spill. "I loved him, I did. Mark wanted a lot of things that I wasn't ready for yet and maybe I gave him some of it like moving in with him and everything but I don't really think that I was doing it for the right reasons. I would have stayed with him for a long time, I think- but I still have my career to think about and this plan that I had and I keep thinking that as much as I loved him and everything that it wasn't ever really _right_. I still do- love him, I mean. I don't want to see him hurt. So you can't screw this up this time because he's not going to. I know he won't."

Addison couldn't help but be slightly impressed with her rambling but she respected it at the same time. How could she not when she clearly cared about Mark's well being? "You're a bigger woman than your sister, Dr. Grey and I respect that. I will do my best to make sure that everything is perfect as long as you promise me one thing."

"Wh-what?" Lexie stammered slightly, afraid of what Addison's request might be. She had heard once that they called her Satan. She didn't really want to take demands from somebody nicknamed Satan.

"Never settle for a man that doesn't feel right," Addison answered with an imperceptible smile turning up the corners of her mouth.

Lexie nodded a little, a lump in her throat because she knew in her heart that Mark wasn't right and a smile on her face because she knew that she'd have her chance to find the one that did feel right. "Yes, ma'am."

Addison nodded with approval, pulling Samantha's chart from the rack, "Good. Shall we get on with our rounds then?"

"Absolutely," Lexie breathed, content that her little talk with Addison had gone so smoothly.

x-x-x-x-x

Cristina stood in line at the coffee cart, exhausted despite the fact that it was 11 in the morning. Even though Burke had let her get a late start to the day, she knew that she was going to need massive amounts of caffeine to make it through the rest of the day.

It had been way too long since she'd spent an entire night cutting into people's chests and putting their heart back together.

She thought with a small smile on her lips that she probably wouldn't be as tired if she hadn't of spent two hours talking to Burke when she could have been sleeping. It had started in surgery, hushed speaking over their patient while they worked. He asked about her trip to Hawaii which earned some bitter and short answers. Cristina countered with asking how many women he'd dated since he'd been gone.

His answer made her tense slightly and she felt the slightest twinge of jealousy.

Somehow it all carried over through surgery and to the scrub room. Despite their exhaustion, they found themselves not wanting to separate quite yet. He followed her into a call room and they never bothered with locking the door because she reminded him for at least the fifth time that night that they were going slow.

He sat on the floor next to her bunk while she lay on her side, looking at him through the dark. It was there that he apologized again, his velvety voice wavering at points. The pain in his voice was enough for Cristina and while he'd hurt her greatly, she didn't want to hear how much it hurt him.

She wasn't as strong as he was with all of that. In the darkness she proclaimed that it was in the past and that she never wanted to hear about it again. They could jog and they'd already past that point and they weren't doing laps and they weren't running backwards because she couldn't do backwards.

Her 'be kind, rewind' policy hadn't gotten her very far the first time around. There was no point in trying that again.

Cristina hated herself for remembering the way that her heart sped up only slightly when he reached out to brush her curls from her face. While she had said that they were jogging and taking it slow, she knew that they'd never last long before their relationship turned physical.

Talk was cheap anyway.

If she were honest with herself, had she not started to drift off just as the sun rose, she probably would have slept with him then. However his voice was soothing and his fingertips were soft against the top of her hand and lulling her to sleep. The feeling of his lips feather light against her forehead still lingered and she didn't want it to fade anytime soon.

Nobody would ever feel as certain as he did.

She knew that even with the now unmentionable past, especially with that past, if things felt like this now that they could only get better and that there wouldn't be any end. They would go on forever.

For some reason, she was okay with that where she hadn't been before.

Though she'd never admit it out loud, maybe the break was good for them. It could have come about in a better way but maybe they had needed it in order to realize that what they had was a good thing.

Or maybe she just needed more sleep and coffee, because her thoughts were starting to make her somewhat nauseous.

Cristina took her coffee and scanned her badge for the barista before proceeding down the hallway. She spotted Owen and paused for a minute, waiting to see what he would do.

Never one to back down from a confrontation, Owen walked up to her just as she had expected him to. His blue eyes were saddened and angry all at the same time. The look of sleeplessness had ingrained itself into his face and when he spoke her name, there was a tone of desperation that she'd become all too used to.

"Owen," she answered his greeting just as he had delivered his.

"You need to reconsider this," Owen spoke in a low voice, "We were good for each other, Cristina. We were happy. I don't know what's wrong with you that you can't see that."

"We were happy?" Cristina asked in an incredulous voice.

"You weren't?"

"You couldn't tell?" She asked, shaking her head in disbelief, "How could you not see that? How could you not tell that I was miserable? Not just because of you or the circumstances but just with everything? How did you not see that?"

Owen was caught off guard by her answer, "I don't know. You never said anything."

"Have I ever said anything?" Cristina countered.

"Then maybe you should have spoke up. Maybe you should have said something." Owen argued, "I could have fixed it if I knew that something was wrong."

"You should have _seen_ it. I shouldn't have to say anything, Owen. You-" She paused for a minute, shaking her head, "You have your own issues and your own things."

"I don't have them anymore. Not as much."

"But you still have them," She spoke emphatically, "Owen, you need to focus on you."

"I have been."

Cristina couldn't help but smirk, "Yeah. I know. That's why this didn't work. I don't require a lot of attention and I certainly don't want to be the center of yours or anyone's universe but for everything that I did for you I at least deserved to be a part of it."

"I loved you. I still do. You always knew that," he spoke, lowering his voice.

"You didn't love me Owen," Cristina murmured, "You needed me."

"He doesn't deserve you."

"Maybe not," She said, "But you didn't fight for me until you knew there was a reason to fight. You didn't pay any attention to me until you knew that there was a threat. It was all about you. I can't settle for that."

Owen was offended by her choice of words and he scoffed, "He's going to hurt you again. You're not what he wants."

"I'll be the judge of that. Seeing as he left everything that he had to come back and fight for me fully knowing that I was in a relationship I'm pretty sure that I'm what he wants."

"You'll regret it," He muttered, straightening out his posture and glancing around. "I won't be here to pick up the pieces."

Cristina was unaffected by his words, "I don't need you here. We're past regrets. We're going forward."

Owen watched as he walked away from her with his jaw clenched. While he had considered giving chase for a moment, trying to make her open her eyes and realize what a mistake she was making. He was confident in the fact that if he waited for a few days she would see what she was giving up and change her mind.

Or at least he hoped she would. He wasn't sure what he would do without her.

x-x-x-x-x

"This day is neverending," Burke commented dryly, pulling his glasses from his face to massage the bridge of his nose. "Actually, this day started yesterday."

"That's your own fault when you were doing things that you weren't supposed to be doing when you could have been sleeping," Addison answered in a singsong voice as she pulled apart a sticky-bun that she pretended was fat free.

"We were talking," He reminded her, rolling his head and stretching his neck out slightly. Despite the fact that he'd already mentally reviewed his schedule six times in his head, he once again tried to rework it to get out at a decent time.

It wasn't going to work.

Addison smirked, "It's not like I'm going to do _that_ anytime soon. One of us may as well enjoy it."

"Who said I was going to anytime soon? Cristina wants to go slow so we're going slow," He answered, finally sliding his glasses back on.

"Why does that have to be involved in going slow?"

"I have no idea," He laughed, slightly amused by his friend's disposition. Burke wasn't quite sure that he'd ever really seen Addison in this condition. If it weren't highly in appropriate he would have asked her exactly how long it had been since she had seemingly become fixated on it.

"I don't think it should be," She concluded, "It should be a greeting. It should come before the dating. That way you know if it's bad sex that it's not worth it. And if it's good sex-" She started and then felt her face warm slightly. She quickly shoved a piece of pineapple into her mouth to silence herself and counteract the fat-free sticky bun all at the same time.

"It would solve a lot of problems," Burke chuckled slightly, glancing across the cafeteria to see Cristina walk in with Meredith. His brown eyes sparkled slightly as he took her in and he smiled a smile reserved only for her.

Cristina returned the gesture, earning a wide grin from him.

Maybe the slow thing was a little bit of a pain in the ass.

"Preston," Addison answered, waving her hand in front of his face, "Earth to Preston. Get your mind out of the gutter and pay attention to me. I asked you a question."

Burke glanced at her, "I didn't hear you say anything."

"That's because you were busy having eye-sex with your jogging partner. I asked you if you've worked with Lexie Grey yet."

"You didn't ask me that," He insisted, "But no, I haven't yet. Why?"

"Because I'm working with her today," She answered pointedly, stabbing another piece of pineapple.

Burke couldn't help but laugh again, "You never change your tactics do you? I remember when you requested Meredith on your service."

"Oh no," Addison smirked, "She requested _me."_

"Seriously?" He asked, his eyebrow arched high.

"Seriously," Addison paused a beat, "Are we still seriously-ing or is that old?"

"Cristina said it last night. I think we're in the clear."

"Okay, good. Anyway, she talked to me and I don't feel as guilty. Which is good, I guess. It means she's okay."

"Agreed," Burke nodded, "She seems like the type that would be an open book, not unlike the older version."

Addison snickered, "Grey version 2.1."

"I'm sure that one has probably come and gone. She's a resident now isn't she?" Burke teased gently, "There's probably no use in resuscitating a bad joke."

"I thought it was funny," She answered with the slightest pout.

"There's probably no use in resuscitating a bad joke," He repeated with a grin, knowing just how to get to her.

Addison dropped her fork beside her fruit and resumed pulling apart her sticky bun. "I'm a genius and it was a genius joke. You're simply jealous because you don't have half the sense of humor that I do."

"Yes," He agreed in the slightest tone of condescension, "I'm sure that's exactly what it is."

The two shared a laugh and continued over their lunch, for once neither one of them plotting as to what they were going to do but simply enjoying their time.

x-x-x-x-x

Cristina paused at the trashcan to drop her half eaten sandwich into the bin and watched Burke with Addison. He had assured her a couple of times that there was absolutely nothing going on but she wasn't entirely sure that she liked how they had their own little secret club. If she was a more sympathetic person, she would have thought she now knew what Izzie felt like but she didn't care what Izzie felt like.

She wouldn't have minded dropping the little hints of jealousy that kept invading her psyche unwelcome, though.

"You know they came here to destroy our lives, right?" Mark answered, pushing a coffee cup into the trash can.

Cristina glanced upwards to him and couldn't help but think how he looked like shit. He'd spent way too long shaving his beard and now that he was trying to grow it back in, it seemingly didn't want to make its return to his chiseled jaw. "That's totally why they came back," Cristina muttered in a dry voice before turning back to look at the pair.

"It is," Mark continued despite Cristina's attitude, "They came here with the intent purpose of breaking up our relationships for their devices. They pretended to be a thing for the sheer purpose of divide and conquer."

"I bet Burke came up with it," She answered with the slightest hint of pride.

"No way," He argued, "I'm sure it was all Addison."

Cristina looked back over at her shoulder at him and then back to the two of them, "It was probably both of them." She finally muttered, unhappy with the idea.

"You don't think they-" Mark started and then his voice trailed off.

"Ew," Cristina hissed with a wrinkled nose. "No. No way."

"Okay, good."

"Yeah, no. Not at all." Or at least Cristina hoped not.

"Just keep him busy so he doesn't try to," He spoke in an authoritative tone, "I know how hard it is to stay away from her and the last thing I need is him jacking all of this up because you can't give the poor guy a bone every once in a while."

"Whatever, Sloan. You're the one that can't keep it in your pants, not Burke." Cristina sneered.

"I can and I have," Mark corrected, wishing momentarily that there was a way to erase his reputation as a manwhore completely. After a moment he finally spoke again, "It doesn't really feel like anything is ruined, does it?"

Cristina shook her head, her expression neutral. "No," her voice was uncharacteristically soft, "It doesn't."

It almost felt like everything was fixed.


	11. Chapter 11

Cristina sat quietly next to Burke, signing off orders from the previous night. Every few moments, her glance would slide to his and then back to the chart and she would clear her throat a little or sigh slightly.

She didn't get it.

Yes, she had told him not to push her or rush her but he was Burke- she had expected at least a little bit of pushing or rushing on his part. She didn't know how to do the forward motion thing right. It's not like she was going to take him out for some overpriced dinner or cook for him. The best she could do was wear some skimpy lingerie or nothing at all.

The rest was supposed to be up to him.

Just the slightest hint of amusement crossed her lips when she realized that maybe she just scared him that much and that's why he wasn't trying anything. However amusing it was, it remained a frustrating point.

He was supposed to be pushing a little.

Once again, Cristina looked up at him and this time she let her eyes linger there. "Fine. You can lead a little."

Burke stopped writing and looked at Cristina with an arched brow, "Excuse me?"

"You can lead. A little. When we jog. Just because I don't know where I'm going and you do. But you can't get too far ahead of me because I'll just stop," Cristina explained, visibly irritated that he didn't get what she was saying the first time around.

He was obviously out of practice.

"You want me to lead," he repeated slowly, "Okay. I can lead if that's what you want."

Cristina nodded slightly, hoping that he'd get it now. She glanced back down to her chart and sighed softly.

Withholding the slightest chuckle, Burke continued to watch her, "Let me cook dinner for you tonight," he finally said in a soft voice, thoroughly enjoying her frustration.

Nonchalantly, Cristina shrugged but she was perfectly fine with showing up at his place for dinner. She knew that it meant the only required form of clothing could barely be considered clothing at all. "Yeah, that's fine, I guess. I have to make sure I'm not busy."

When Burke laughed, she smiled widely.

As much as she hated herself for it, Cristina actually wanted the day to be over now.

x-x-x-x-x

Addison stood eagerly over Mark's shoulder as he placed fine stitches into the soft palate of the little girl she had fallen in love with over the past weeks. She shook her head in disbelief that such fine sutures would even begin to hold the flesh together separated so drastically at the roof of the baby's mouth.

"I'm amazing aren't I?" Mark asked with a grin, "Surgical skill of my caliber should be against the law."

"If you weren't fixing my patient, I'd smack you right now." Addison answered with the slightest of grins.

"No you wouldn't. You like me too much right now."

"Right now," Addison quipped, "Not later."

Mark paused for a moment, switching out instruments and continued to the hard palate, "Speaking of later, are you available?"

"Available?" She asked, sliding her glance his way. "Depends on why you want me to be available I suppose."

Inwardly she cursed herself for hoping for a trip to the on-call room. The third first time they had sex together shouldn't be cheap and dirty though- this time they were supposed to be together.

She was just tired of all the waiting.

"I'd like to take you out to dinner," Mark explained, his eyes focused on the patient partially out of concentration and partially because it felt strange actually dating her. He'd never actually had to entertain her before. It was always just sex and talking.

Now it would be flowers and chocolates and restaurants and all of the things that he wasn't reallyu sure how to handle save for the minute amount of experience that he had with Lexie.

Addison was eager to take him up on it though, "I'd love to."

Mark smiled beneath his mask, "I'll pick you up at seven?"

"Only if Samantha is doing well. If not, it will have to be another day," Addison corrected herself, "I want to make sure she's doing well."

"If she's not, but she will be, I will bring dinner to you."

"It's a win-win situation for me," Addison smirked, looking down at him.

Mark paused to look up at her and saw the happiness in her eyes but it did nothing to alleviate his nerves.

He hoped that after tonight she wouldn't change his mind about him.

x-x-x-x-x

It was late in the afternoon by the time that Burke was able to find Addison. He wasn't sure how she'd react to canceling their breakfast routine but he was nearly certain that he'd have more pressing matters tomorrow morning.

He was nearly counting on it.

"Addison," Burke smiled politely, putting his chart down. He hoped in vain that she had an early surgery or some form of distraction since Sloan seemed to be dragging his heels.

"Oh, Preston. I was wondering if I'd be able to find you before I went into surgery. I can't make it to breakfast tomorrow morning. I have a thing tonight. It will...take a while. And that's so early," She rambled on. "I'm sorry. I hope that you don't-"

"No," He said, eyeing her suspiciously, "What kind of thing?"

"You know. Just a thing. A...dinner thing. A date, I suppose," Addison rambled once more. She was surprised at herself for actually being nervous but in the same instance decided she had earned that right since it had been so long since she'd been on a proper date.

"Seriously?" Burke asked in amusement, "A dinner thing. With Sloan?"

"No with Derek," Addison answered playfully, "Who else would I do dinner with. It seems like you're too occupied for me anyway."

"Oh? And why do you say that?"

"I overheard Cristina talking to Meredith at lunch time. Judging from her words, I'm fairly certain you'll be incapacitated at 5:30 tomorrow morning," she smirked.

Burke chose to ignore the piqued part of his curiosity that could only take the conversation to a very bad and very personal place, "I'm sure that you will be as well."

"If I have my way," Addison's answer came with a satisfied grin, "And if not I'll make sure to ruin your evening in one way or another."

"Do that and I'm not the one you'll have to answer to," Burke grin mirrored her own and he picked up another chart. "So I suppose that I'll see you tomorrow at some point."

"Yes," Addison smiled, "I suppose so."

Burke walked away then, anxious for the evening ahead. Somehow he doubted that dinner would last very long, especially if Cristina was actually discussing it with Meredith.

He was thankful for that.

x-x-x-x-x

Cristina sat on Burke's countertop, kicking her legs idly while watching him dice away at peppers. Every few moments her fingers would venture into unsafe territory and steal a slice of the newly chopped vegetable and earn the same thinly veiled smirk every time.

Anticipation hung in the air and the pair couldn't keep their eyes off of each other. Every once in a while, Cristina would let her fingertips brush the back of his hand as she reached for a pepper- accidentally, of course- and he would reciprocate by leaning in a little too close while reaching for spices.

It was a game neither one of them desired to end anytime soon.

"If you keep stealing those," Burke commented as he dropped the remnants into the pan, "We're not going to have anything to eat."

Cristina leaned back on her palms, casting her best come-hither look in his direction. "Oh, I'm sure you could find something to eat around here."

Casually he leaned over again and pulled some garlic from the spice rack, only to be halted in his movements by the palm of Cristina's hand cupping his cheek slightly.

His eyes searched hers for only the briefest of moments before he pressed his lips into hers and kissed her breathless. Fingers wove through raven curls and legs wrapped around his and the faint smell of burning chicken should have been enough to pull them apart but it wasn't.

They had years to make up for.

When their lips finally broke Cristina smiled lazily, her fingers tracing at the back of his neck, "It's about damn time."

Burke would have laughed at her quip but took the opportunity to kiss her once more.

One would never be enough.

x-x-x-x-x

Addison watched from afar as Samantha's parents cradled her gently in their arms, marveling over the exceptional work done by Mark. She smiled as they did, felt the same pride they did- just for a different reason.

She had always worked well with Mark.

Her eyes looked up to the numbers on the monitor and she knew that with strong vitals like that, Samantha would be feeding in no time, able to grow and go home to her family. Nothing was going to hold her back now.

Even if things were difficult at first, she had finally found her way.

A hand in the small of her back turned her attention from the happy family and upwards to Mark's face. The feel of his palm pressed firmly into his back caused her to shiver slightly and she took note of the extreme pleasure in Mark's face from the reaction. She tried to gather herself up and straighten her posture slightly, "It looks like Samantha is going to allow me an evening out."

"Good," Mark murmured with a devilish look in his eye, "That's good. I'm glad."

The look was not lost on Addison. "So...I suppose I should..go..get ready," she stammered, her mouth suddenly dry.

He shrugged, enjoying the display of nerves, "You can wear your scrubs if you want. It's fine with me."

"Shut up," She grinned, pushing him away slightly. She slid Samantha's chart back onto the rack and pulled away from him, "Don't be late!" She called over her shoulder.

"Not in a million years," he assured her, watching as she walked away.

Mark wasn't going to screw up this time.

x-x-x-x-x

The heavy smell of burnt chicken and peppers lingered around them, the thick smoke finally starting to dissipate. Clothes were tossed haphazardly around the kitchen and the lay on the floor of the kitchen and trailing into the living room.

Soft laughter floated on the heavy smoke as they touched and teased each other, each reacquainting themselves with the other's body.

With lips trailing across her shoulder, Cristina's back arched softly her body pressing into his. Her eyes drifted closed and she let a contended sigh escape her lips. "This may be runner up for the best date ever," she uttered softly, fingers tracing his shoulder.

"Really?" He asked, hand sliding down her side and to her thigh to grip it tightly, "Only runner up?"

Cristina wrapped her other leg around his, looking up at him. "So far. Then again, the night isn't-" her words were blurred into a moan when he finally filled her, painstakingly slow but firm at the same time. Her skin was alight and her body delighting in the divine feeling that everything was right again, even if it had a long way to go.

Nothing would ever feel as good as he did.

Burke kissed her tenderly, let go of reality and held onto her as they moved together. Cristina would be the only thing that he ever _truly_ needed or wanted. He murmured softly into her ear that he missed her, that he loved her and that he had never stopped.

While Cristina didn't reciprocate, she knew that she didn't need to. He would wait for her as long as she needed him to.

What she didn't tell him is that she didn't think it would take her too long.

x-x-x-x-x

As the world spun around her, Addison laughed softly. Her dress bunched slightly at her lower back as Mark twirled her to the quiet jazz music wafting through the air. Dancing wasn't exactly _encouraged_ in the middle of the restaurant he'd chosen to bring her to but they were anyway.

Everybody was watching them and neither one of them cared enough to stop.

Addison rested her chin atop Mark's shoulder, her arms wrapped around him and she closed her eyes. "You know, I'm pretty sure that you never took me on a real date," She murmured into the crisp material of his suit, "Before. A girl could get used to this. You should be careful."

"I fully intend on you getting used to it," He assured her in a low voice, "This and so much more. I've learned a few new tricks."

"Oh, have you?" Addison asked in curiosity, pulling back to look at him.

"Absolutely," Mark grinned, his index finger tracing a soft pattern at the small of her back drawing the very breath from her lungs.

"And when do I get to see these tricks?" She asked, her eyes half lidded and her voice suggestive.

"Keep talking like that and we'll end up skipping dinner so I can show them to you now."

Slowly and very reluctantly, Addison pulled away from him. "Dancing in the restaurant is one thing. The things I want to do to you right now in the middle of the restaurant would get us banned for life."

Mark grasped her hand and pulled her back to him to kiss her softly, his fingers curling through her fiery locks. "There are other restaurants."

Again, Addison laughed and her arms wrapped around him tightly once more.

The restaurant wasn't really all that it was cracked up to be anyway.

x-x-x-x-x

Porcelain fingertips traced against chocolate colored skin idly and pink lips curled up into contented and fulfilled smiles. Those same lips brushed gently, over and over again and limbs intertwined- not that they had really ever separated.

"We should get up."

Cristina smiled devilishly against his lips when she could feel the deep rumble of his voice in her fingertips against his chest, "You already are."

A small chuckle tickled her lips and his arms tightened around her. Before this very moment, Burke would swear that he'd never really _known_ happiness until now.

She didn't say it out loud but Cristina was thinking the same.

x-x-x-x-x

Addison's body shuddered once more against his and she wondered how it was possible that he could do the things to her body that he could. Nobody else was capable of it and it only made her momentarily loathe herself for pushing him away for so long.

Mark quickly took her mind off of that with a creative flick of his tongue against her skin.

Her arms wrapped around his neck and she moved with him, breathlessly chanting his name against his shoulder. She said all the things she knew would drive him mad and a few things that would make him realize exactly how much it was that she cared about him.

She'd never really said it to him before and now she would make sure to say it all the time.

They found their highs together, their skin slick and fingers still relearning familiar territory. Addison lips parted against his, inviting his tongue into her mouth and then intertwined. If anything, they always shared an amazing passion for each other that had never faded- one that declared itself the first time they had made love.

"You're amazing," Mark murmured against her mouth, letting her swallow the compliment as his fingers tugged gently at ruby red hair.

"You're not so bad yourself," Addison smiled in agreement, pulling back to look at him.

"I'm better than not-so-bad," He grinned, his eyes fixed on hers, "If I were just not-so-bad, you would have never come back here. Not for me. Not for this. You know it's good."

"At least I know I don't need to stroke your ego," She laughed softly, "You do it on your own."

Mark kissed her then, pulling her body tighter against his, "Oh no. I have much better things for you to stroke then my ego."

Addison kissed him harder, lying back until he was on top of her and then whispered breathlessly, "Show me."

"With pleasure," He grinned, tasting the salty flesh of her neck before continuing downward.

She'd never even tease about how good it was by the time he was done with her.

x-x-x-x-x

_a few months later_

Addison smiled over her coffee at her dear friend, watching him agonize over a real estate magazine, "I'm telling you, Preston. You could take my apartment since I'm always downstairs anyway. It would be convenient."

Burke laughed softly, "I'm afraid while you think that's convenient that Cristina would never agree to that and neither would Sloan. I'm afraid that one of these days that they're going to plot how to separate us."

"You think?" She grinned, lifting her coffee to her lips. "I never pictured Cristina to be the jealous type. I have to admit that I'm a little surprised."

"She isn't," Burke answered with a shake of his head, "She's passionate."

Addison's eyes sparkled and she smiled widely. A blind man could see how in love he was with Cristina, "Is that what they're calling it these days?"

"And what of Sloan?"

"Oh, he's jealous." She smirked, pulling the real estate guide from his hands and flipping through it herself. "I still think that your best bet is this one."

"I prefer it myself but Cristina actually wants to look."

Addison couldn't control the surprise in her tone, "You're kidding."

With only the slightest hint of pride in his affirmation, Burke responded. "Not at all. We're both off this weekend and she agreed to look at places." He left out the part about how she quickly masked the suggestion with some muttering about living with Callie and Arizona and them driving her crazy.

Details weren't _that_ important.

"I'm impressed," Addison smiled, pushing the guide back to him. "Do you have any idea how lucky we are?"

"I'm certainly not taking it for granted."

"Neither am I. I refuse to. We have this chance again and things are…things are _great_ and I'm not going to let it get away again." Her voice was somewhat wistful but hopeful at the same time.

Burke gingerly sipped his hot coffee before responding, "I never really thanked you."

With her eyebrow arched high on her forehead Addison looked at him in question, "What on earth are you thanking _me_ for?"

"If I recall correctly, and I _am_ always right, it was your ridiculous idea to come here in the first place," he grinned.

"Me?" Addison scoffed, "No, this was certainly not my idea."

"It was. You were the one buying real estate without seeing it and calling Richard to redeem our old positions. I was merely a victim in your insane takeover of Seattle," Burke teased gently, "However, the results are better than desirable for both of us, I believe. If you hadn't come up with the aforementioned plotting I'm fairly certain that my life would leave little to be desired."

Addison smiled softly, "Does she know how happy she makes you?"

"I tell her when she'll let me. And when she doesn't, I show her instead."

"Don't ever stop doing that," She murmured to her dear friend, "Even in eleven years. We want to hear it. Even if we pretend that we don't."

Recognizing that Addison was ignoring his gratitude, Burke let it slip by.

Even if it there wasn't a truly physical way to repay her for everything that she had done, all of the things she had convinced him to do, he would always be her friend. It would have to be enough.

Steam rose in small billows over their coffee, swirling into the air and dissipating amongst the echoes of laughter and reminiscence as they continued their idle conversation, no plotting or planning left to be had.

Life was good again and they were enjoying it to its fullest.

_And these memories lose their meaning when I think of love as something new. And I know I'll never lose affection for people and things that went before. I know I'll often stop and think about them._

_In my life I loved you more._


End file.
